



















J 

CORRUPTION 


A NOyEL 


PERCY WHITE 

t' 

AUTHOR OF MR. BAILEY-MARTIN, ETC. 




V ^ 




NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


/ 


1895 




Copyright, 1895, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER I. 

The hot August morning was cool and pleasant in 
Paul Carew’s chambers, high up in a great red block in 
Piccadilly, overlooking the trees of the Green Park. 

' Through the open window, at his late breakfast, under 
the roar of the traffic, he heard the wind moving in the 
dry leaves. 

He knew his speech in the House had been a suc- 
cess, without the approving note of patronage in the 
papers. 

Last night in the lobbies men had gone so far as to 
declare that it had saved the Labour Bill. A dozen 
correspondents had sent the statement to the big pro- 
vincial papers. Whether true or not it was convenient 
to believe. 

The newspapers were gratulatory. His brilliant, 
handsome personality and his youth pleased the press, 
the public, and society. 

A little sooner than the rest of the world, he had 

perceived that the Bill, with its slight and superficial 

fiavour of socialism, was generally acceptable to the 

1 


2 


CORRUPTION. 


vague gentlemen who boasted of belonging to the 
“ great party of progress,” whilst it was practically in- 
nocuous to the capitalists, at whose influence it theo- 
retically aimed. A complicated measure, safe-guarded 
by intricate clauses such as the British legislator loves, 
it had been swallowed by the Labour men in the 
House, chiefly on the strength of Carew’s persuasive 
oratory. 

“ Take it,” he practically said, “ for what it is 
worth.” Yet before he had sat down he made its worth 
seem great. 

So they voted for it, although they knew every 
Trades Union would call the measure “a plausible 
sham ” when they understood it. 

The Opposition speaker sneered. “ So long,” he 
said, “ as Greville paid his ‘ pledges ’ to the country, he 
was indifferent as to the value of the counters.” 

When Carew had finished breakfast, he lit a cigar- 
ette and read the papers. “ Mr. Carew,” said the Times^ 

“ has advanced to the front rank of debaters and become 

* 

a power in the House with which no minister can longer 
afford to trifle.” 

The “ no longer ” pleased him. Was it not a broad 
hint ? 

The Standard had no doubt that the Government’s 
“ rash measure would bring its own punishment on all 
responsible for its acceptance,” but admitted that “ Mr. 
Carew’s speech was a notable one,” and added magnani- 
mously, in reference to his “ inexperience,” that “ the 
man who has made a distinct place for himself in poli- 


CORRUPTION. 


3 


tics at thirty, must have a great future before him.” It 
then explained why his place could never he a great 
one, but gave the wrong reason. 

Carew never thought of the future without deep 
misgiving. 

“ I’m like a fanatic with a hair shirt,” he reflected, 
“ only I wear mine next my conscience.” 

But he was not candid even with himself. The 
eternal fear of “ being found out ” haunted him. It is 
a vulgar primitive dread, so he always draped it with 
the prettiest cloak his brilliant fancy could devise ; 
whilst in his public speeches, he recognised the truth of 
the ^schylean doctrine that “ the evil doer must suffer,” 
he never applied it to himself. 

The one successful political free-lance of his day, 
Carew, by a sort of natural selection, became the pole to 
which the discontented supporters of the ministry gravi- 
tated. Over the Labour men he exercised the fascina- 
tion of a snake for an honest duck. At once a critic 
and a supporter of the Government, he shot his arrows 
into both camps. The range his rhetoric thus acquired 
saved him from platitudes, and he never spoke to empty 
benches. Few men had risen so rapidly. The deferen- 
tial attitude of the Government whips, the anxiety of 
the Prime Minister to secure his support were intelligi- 
ble to the meanest intellect that studied the cheap wis- 
dom of the political leader-writer. Poor, extravagant, 
and in debt, comparative wealth was almost within his 
grasp, since office, perhaps with a seat in the Cabinet, 
could not be long delayed. 


4 


CORRUPTION. 


Many men, and more women, admired Paul Carew, 
but no man quite so much as Stephen Muir, the 
- millionaire brewer, whom the Prime Minister had 
disappointed of a peerage. Nothing in politics drives 
a man to revolt so surely as unrealised expectations. 
Muir had seen a whole awkward squad, not one of 
whom had served the party half so well, rewarded with 
seats in the Upper House. That he was only half a 
mutineer was due to Carew. The evening paper which 
Muir ran, at a loss of some thousands a year, in the 
cryptic interests of beer, and the open interests of 
“Carewism and Progress,” was constantly whining or 
barking at* the heels of the Government. But Muir 
had no real political nose, so he borrowed Carew’s infal- 
lible scent. Thanks to this alliance, the “ Beer King,” 
as the temperance orators called him, could kick the 
Ministry with vigour and skill whenever Carew gave the 
hint. So the Cornet^ for all practical purposes, became 
Carew’s organ. 

Muir had several substantial reasons besides purely 
personal ones for adoring Carew, and since he had lent 
him a thousand pounds, which he knew pretty well the 
young politician could not pay back, in secret his regard 
assumed that patronising attitude which is a pleasing 
compliment to self-esteem. 

“ Whatever Carew might be, would not Muir be able 
to say, ‘ I helped to make him.’ ” 

“ If we are ever to have our peerage, my dear,” he 
said to his wife, “ we shall get it through Paul Carew.” 

And as all the women who knew Paul regarded him 


CORRUPTION. 


5 


as a political Lancelot without the blemish, Mrs. Muir 
agreed with her husband, and Miss Muir thought him a 
hero. 

At twelve o’clock Stephen Muir called and inter- 
rupted Carew’s pleasant reverie. 

“ Congratulations ! my dear Paul,” — ever since he 
had lent that thousand pounds, Muir had called him 
by his surname — “ you scored tremendously. I see 
you’ve read the papers. The Times pats you on the 
back. It will soon be only ‘ ask and have ! ’ If you’re 
not Home Secretary in Greville’s next Cabinet, may I 
be hanged for a revolutionist ! ” Carew smiled. 

“ I don’t fly so high. I’ll take what I can get, and 
be thankful. But this Parliament won’t run two ses- 
sions more. Creville’s Prohibition Bill will wreck it, 
and we shall go out in the cold. Well (if we do), it 
will only be deferred. ’Twould serve Greville right to 
be turned out. He’s able, I admit, but has no sense of 
proportion. He has sold himself to the teetotallers. 
He fancies an invitation to dinner and ten minutes po- 
lite patronage cancel any favour. I shall never forget 
his last list of birthday honours ! Dissenters, fanatics, 
or temperance advocates to a man. Not a one amongst 
’em for whom the country cares a button.” 

“ But does the country ever care a button about 
politics? We magnify them because we never get far 
enough away. People are infinitely more interested in 
cricket matches than Labour bills, and quite right too.’’ 

“ I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” said Muir, who al- 
ways rolled back into his grievance like a round stone 


6 


CORRUPTION. 


into a hollow ; “ it’s Greville the country are tired 
of!” 

“ I don’t think so. Three-fourths of his programme 
is popular enough. The papers are misleading. Gre- 
ville is picturesque, and really has a strong basis of 
patriotism. He’s ineTectual at times, I grant you, but 
people never see that. Besides, he has so many chick- 
ens to feed, and there isn’t barley enough to go round. 
They trot after him, clucking all over the place, and 
don’t add to his dignity.” 

It never occurred to Muir that his friend could in- 
clude him in the brood. 

“ What are you going to do, Carew ? ” he asked 
after a pause. “ Barrett tells me you’ve ‘ paired ’ with 
him for the few remaining days of the session. Come 
with us up to Scotland. There is any amount of 
grouse, my keepers tell me.” 

Carew knew what he wanted to do, but whether he 
did it or not depended on the amount of temptation 
and the extent of his recklessness. 

“ I should like to come up to you a little later in 
the season,” he said, “ but I can’t fix the date just 
yet.” 

Carew never would fix a date. Destiny, he told 
himself, did that for him. 

“We shall expect to see you,” said Muir, a little 
disappointed at not catching this difficult guest at once. 

The mystery of Carew’s movements provoked curi- 
osity, conjecture, and a suspicion of scandal. 

Before Muir left, the post came, bringing a tray full 


CORRUPTION. 


7 


of letters. The liandwriting on one made Carew’s 
heart heat, and he opened it first. It said : “ Well done ! 
I am proud of you. Come and see me this evening. 
Throw discretion to the winds, and make me happy for 
once. There are many things that I wish to say. — 
Beatrice.” 

This was the signal for which he had waited. 


CHAPTER II. 

English society as it grows older becomes more 
charitable. Perhaps the extension of good nature may 
be a sign of decadence as well as of its philosophy. 
Hitherto the world had let off Paul Carew easily, partly 
because a certain latitude is conceded to those who 
claim it, but chiefly because Beatrice Mannering’s airy 
way of announcing, “ Mr. Carew and I are remotely 
cousins,” disarmed suspicion. Their relationship, how- 
ever, was on another footing. Her father had been 
rector in the west-country parish where Carew’s father 
had been squire. Agrarian disasters had blotted out the 
estate whilst Paul was at Oxford, and the rectory had 
passed into other hands before Beatrice’s marriage. A 
few scattered farms in the neighbourhood of Beau vis, 
from which he drew his scanty income, were all that 
remained of a once-valuable property. 

Carew still thought the old rectory garden, with its 
climbing roses in summer, its gleaming evergreens in 


8 


CORRUPTION. 


the mild, moist winters, the pleasantest spot on the 
earth. Yet Beatrice was the heroine of a poem whose 
end must be shame and defeat. 

When Carew, at the beginning of his political 
career, first weighed the chances in cold blood, he de- 
termined the one passion of his life should not colour 
his future. But temptation grew with his growing 
fame, and begot recklessness. 

It seemed to him that morning that he had been 
waiting for Beatrice’s summons for years. She had 
never thrown the little ballast of make-believe over- 
board so completely before. 

“ Go ! ” thought he, “ of course I’ll go.” 

So he went to dine with her partly because the tide 
swept him there, but chiefly because Mannering was in 
Norway. 

As Beatrice sat in a low chair, with the lamp-light 
shining on her fair neck and arms, he thought he had 
never seen any woman so beautiful before. 

Her clear smile showed the completeness of the un- 
derstanding between them. 

“ Miss Muir was here to-day,” she said. “ Her 
father told her you are sure of a place in the new Min- 
istry. I long to see you in office.” 

“ Muir is over sanguine. He looks to me to act as a 
sort of ministerial Nemesis for him some day, and is 
rather in a hurry for his revenge. The public isn’t 
used to Carew yet.” 

“ But they will be soon.” 

“ You exaggerate the importance of a little noto- 


CORRUPTION. 


9 


riety,” he answered. “ But it is kind of you to be inter- 
ested in me.” 

“ Kind ! Every one is interested in you. There is 
scarcely a woman in London who would not envy me 
because you dined with me to-night.” 

“ So they would, if I were the owner of a Derby win- 
ner or an envoy from Kegroland. That sort of thing 
counts for nothing, and only lasts a week or two. The 
public are always interested in jugglers, no matter what 
their tools are.” 

Their emotions were flowing side by side whether 
they were silent or whether they spoke. They talked 
of old and half-forgotten things, when Beatrice was a 
schoolgirl and he an undergraduate. There was no 
conventional barrier between them now. The winds 
and waves of passion had swept it away long ago. 

“ In a marriage like mine,” she said, “ and probably 
in all marriages, happiness is relative. We all miss our 
ideal but get something else in its place.” 

“ As good ? ” he asked. 

“ Who knows? when none of us have it.” 

“ But you are not unhappy, Beatrice ? ” 

“I am happy now,” she said, tremulously. “To- 
morrow I shall be sad enough.” 

“Why? Tell me.” 

“ Do you know what most women suffer from — I 
mean the women who have time to think and feel ? ” 

“ From unsatisfied aspirations, like the rest of us ? ” 

“ Ko ! from unsatisfied love.” 

“ What is the remedy ? ” 


10 


CORRUPTION. 


• “ There is none — only half remedies. When our 
first experiment fails — I mean when we miss our ideal 
— a second can never be entirely successful. We try to 
clip and trim our emotions and passions into regulation 
shape, and only half live in consequence.” 

“ But most of us must be content with dim things,” 
he urged. “ My life is full of excitement and move- 
ment, but do you suppose it satisfies me ? ” 

“ I know,” she said, “ your calm is only a sham. 
But whose fault was it, Paul ? ” 

“ My own ! all my own.” 

Then a wandering memory arrested his fancy. 
Once they had read Matthew Arnold’s poems together 
under the cedar tree on the rectory lawn, lovers uncon- 
fessed. 

“ To-night, Beatrice,” he said, “ in this flower- 
haunted room of yours, I am the ‘ Strayed Reveller,’ 
you are Circe.” 

“ But I, Ulysses, 

Sitting on warm steps 
Looking over the valley, 

All day long, have seen. 

Without pain, without labour. 

Sometimes a wild-hair’d maenad — 

Sometimes a faun with torches — 

And sometimes, for a moment. 

Passing through the dark stems, 

Flowing-robed, the beloved, 

The desired, the divine. 

Beloved lacchus.” 

Her face seemed luminous with excitement. 

“I love the atmosphere you draw round things,” 


CORRUPTION. 


11 


she exclaimed, “but politics will soon claim you for 
their own, and you will stray no more into Circe’s 
palace.” 

“ I will come whenever Circe calls ! ” 

“ Come now — darling.” 

She extended her white arms towards him. • 

“ Who am I,” he whispered, “ that I should try to 
live without love — and you ? ” 

• ••••#• 

“ Paul,” she said, “ what I am you have made 
me.” 

“ You are the cleverest and most beautiful woman I 
have ever known,” he answered recklessly. 

“ And the wickedest ! ” 

“Wickedness with you is only a relative form of 
virtue. You were so young and inexperienced, and 
love was knocking at the gate. We grew up with 
only a privet hedge between our two gardens — no other 
barrier. What wrong there was is all mine.” 

“ The great wrong was when you let me marry 
Gerald ! If you had been ‘ the bashful gallant,’ I ‘ the 
lady with the colder breast than snow,’ now our con- 
sciences would be clear, and I could take my place in 
the army of British matronhood quite unafraid.” 

“ And ended in caring for Mannering, and made our 
lives dim existences, like those of all the dull good 
people about us.” 

“Far better for both of us, Paul! We built our 
nest on a volcano. The underground rumblings terrify 
me. I wonder what it feels like to be good 1 ’Tis so 


12 


CORRUPTION. 


long ago that I forget, 3^et I was the year before my 
marriage.” 

A cloud of anxiety passed across her pathetic face. 
For still at times, in spite of the slow corruption of her 
better self, the flickering of remorse assailed her. 

In her memory one fatal day stood out vivid and 
clear with its conflicting emotions — the still August 
day, a year before her marriage. 


CHAPTER III. 

On the last day of the session, Stephen Muir gave 
a parliamentary dinner in Carew’s honour, to which he 
invited all recalcitrant supporters of the Government 
whom the Prime Minister had succeeded in offending 
in his recurrent moments of petulant sincerity. 

The dinner was remarkable for incongruity. They 
dined at Muir’s magnificent house in Kensington, an 
abode exuding wealth through a hundred luxurious 
pores. 

The Labour group, who had not expanded beyond 
the meat-tea stage of society, and which knew not the 
dress-coat, was represented ; three Socialist members, 
who regarded dinner dress as an objectionable super- 
fluity, also came. Other unclassed politicians, who 
had occasionally followed Carew into the Opposition 
lobby when there was no danger of upsetting the 
Government, and a chance of cheaply advertising their 


CORRUPTION. 


13 


independence, sat round the table. When Carew 
looked round it, he recalled a recent cartoon which 
had represented him as Falstaff leading a ragged politi- 
cal army to defeat. 

“ Stephen the Magnificent,” as he was called in the 
House, gazed with satisfaction on his guests. The 
Carewites, he told himself, swelling with secret pride, 
were destined to become the nucleus of a great National 
party which Carew must lead, but of which he would 
be the secret lever. Unfortunately, Muir’s scheme 
of life was coniplete consistency of attitude, so he 
passed a considerable portion of it in a dialectic conflict 
with himself. For a millionaire, he was pulling an oar 
in an odd galley. He used to tell his wife, upon whom 
he practised his oratory, and who mistook him for a 
statesman hicompris^ that “the Socialists were trying 
to drag the country into a dangerous sea of cosmopoli- 
tanism where patriotism and property must alike be 
submerged.” As for the Labour party, he would 
ask her at breakfast, were they but machines for re- 
cording the wishes of the Trade Unions in Parliament? 
“ If,” he would add proudly, “ I keep these convictions 
to myself, it is because I am a public man who has the 
reputation of being a millionaire.” 

No one in the world took Muir seriously but his 
wife, but, as we are rarely candid to the exceedingly 
rich, he never discovered it. 

Carew considered the dinner a dangerous but not 
uninteresting experiment. 

“You would like to tie chaos to your chair if you 


u 


CORRUPTION. 


could, Muir,” he said before dinner. “ I hope the 
menagerie won’t fight.” 

“ They won’t if you take the chair,” replied Muir 
nervously. 

“ Your Labour men and Socialists hate one another 
with the ferocity of near relations,” said Carew, “ and 
w'e must keep them apart.” 

“ Labour,” which had come in the omnibus and in 
thick boots, secretly resented the splendid flunkeys, but 
feared them a little too. The Socialists who drove up 
in a “ four-wheeler ” frowned on principle at the over- 
whelming signs of wealth which appealed hopelessly to 
their predatory legislative instincts. They dreamt of 
“ death duties ” to the confiscatory point. 

While the guests were assembling Carew spoke to 
each with the charming urbanity he could assume 
whenever it pleased him, and succeeded in giving every 
man the good conceit of himself necessary for comfort. 

He assured Buckler, the leader of the Labour men, 
who commenced life as a hammerman in a north- 
country foundry, that he considered his acceptance of 
Muir’s invitation a personal compliment of extreme 
delicacy. 

Buckler was pleased. “ Tliere isn’t,” he answered 
magnanimously, “ a man in the House w^ho wouldn’t 
have done as much for you. But those chaps in fancy 
dress do put my back up.” 

“ But you’ll soon make them obsolete, Mr. Buckler,” 
said Carew, smiling genially, “ so suffer them gladly for 
this evening.” 


CORRUPTION. 


15 


Fansliawe, the Socialist poet, who wore a velvet coat 
and a red tie, pretended to suRer acutely from his 
gilded environment. 

“ Do conceal your horror for an hour,” urged Oarew. 
“ Since ^\e can’t divide Muir amongst us yet awhile, 
let us keep him as a fatted calf for future use. If you 
are decently polite you will find him enough of a Social- 
ist to help pay your next election expenses, if only for 
the pleasure of spiting Greville.” 

The dinner was superb, with its forest of flowers 
and perfect service. Chdteau Lafitte, worth two 
guineas a bottle, tickled the dull palate of Labour, and 
priceless champagne heated the ardent fancy of Social- 
ism. Hard faces nnwrinkled ; voluble tongues loos- 
ened. 

But the political friends v>^hose support had helped 
to make Carew formidable to the Prime Minister as 
w^ell as useful, were seen to greater advantage on the 
public platform than at the dinner table of a lavish 
millionaire. They mixed uncomfortably, and thought 
it evidence of independence never to conceal their opin- 
ions. A shadowy constituency sat behind each man’s 
chair in judgment on his democratic spirit. The har- 
monious units had been placed together as much as 
possible, but wdiere the Labour group overlapped the 
Socialists there was friction. 

Muir, who, nervously festive, perceived the sparks 
flying from the impact, glanced towards Carew, hoping 
he would quell it. 

“ Before you talk of the association of labour and 
2 


16 


CORRUPTION. 


capital, sir,” Fanshawe was shouting to Buckler, “ I 
advise you to read what Karl Marx has to say on the 
subject.” 

D — n Karl Marx ! ” bawled the Labour man in 
reply ; “ he’s a misguider of youth.” 

Whilst the argument was growing in heat, Carew 
scribbled a pencil note to Fanshawe : “ Remember the 
quarrels of the Centaurs and Lapithao over their wine, 
and forget Marx.” 

The servant gave it on a salver to the long-haired 
poet, who smiled and nodded, and handed it to Buck- 
ler, who, imagining it was a reference to some incident 
in recent Irish history, smoothed his wiry locks, and 
signified acquiescence too. 

Then Muir, who had not been at Eton and Oxford 
quite in vain, waved his champagne glass and said : 

“ ‘ Nunc est bibendum 

Nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus,’” 

and rose to propose the only toast of the evening. 

“ We are here to-night, gentlemen, to honour a 
young political leader, who is, unless all my instincts 
fail me, the man of the future. It is he who has 
taught independent members like ourselves, with views 
which in some cases may be divergent, but with inter- 
est more frequently harmonising, how best to make 
their weight felt. AVe are all on the side of progress, 
and, although we may differ in detail as to what consti- 
tutes it, we are yet enabled frequently to agree on the 
broad lines which Paul Carew has discovered. The 


CORRUPTION. 


17 


newspapers in derision have called ns ‘ Carewites.’ 
What was intended as a term of reproach has become a 
title of honour. The critics who once scoRed at us 
now fear us. We can, they say, only agree to be mis- 
chievous, and declare that as conditional supporters of 
the present Ministry we have no policy of our own. A 
party without a formula may be an anomaly, but cer- 
tainly we have made it a powerful one. But, gentle- 
men, if we have no formulas, we can at least understand 
the spirit of the time. We all believe in Democracy, or 
acquiesce in it because we perceive it is hopeless to fight 
against it. I will not conceal from you that I am 
amongst the latter. Democracy is now a law in the 
political world. Like the winds and the tides of the 
physical world — which we occasionally use as useful eco- 
nomic motive forces — it must ultimately be obeyed. 
But in guiding the popular forces lies the secret of suc- 
cess. This our young leader has discovered. The ene- 
mies declare that we are the rcductio ad absurdum of 
representative government ! I claim that we are the 
most striking evidence of its sanity! We represent 
the allied forces of the different sections of the ad- 
vanced camp of political thinkers. That we have on 
the whole been able to give the Premier our support 
during the session has been due to the skill of Paul 
Carew. The impress of his own — I may say of our own 
— hand, gentlemen, is on more than one important 
measure. So long as we agree, we can make our weight 
felt. For our agreement in the past we must thank 
Paul Carew. That alone has given us our influence. 


18 


CORRUPTION. 


We are now gathered together — under my roof I am 
proud to say — to thank him for his splendid services, 
his dauntless courage, and his unstinted energies* 
Gentlemen ! I propose the health of Paul Carew, our 
leader and our friend.” 

Muir had enjoyed his speech more than auy of his 
hearers. The scratch collection of politicians who ena- 
bled Carew to worry the Prime Minister had listened 
with a cynical contempt that the temporary amiability 
lurking in champagne barely enabled them to conceal, 
but they toasted Carew with much cordiality. They 
knew that he hoped to ride into olTice on their shoulders, 
but scarcely grudged him the saddle. 

The scene struck him as grotesque. The red ties, 
the rough heads, the clumsy fingers in agitation to 
honour him suddenly shifted into the white light that 
illumines pure folly. 

Carew had often replied to similar compliments 
before, and the ancient cliches were ready to his hand. 
They had no logical claim, he said, to be called a new 
party. They had worked together during certain crit- 
ical periods in unison and to their general advantage. 
So far they had not been called upon to offer any pro- 
gramme, but merely to prevent others from acting 
unwisely. Society and politics were in a transition 
stage, but every man might stand a sentinel at the gate 
of human progress. 

“ Our modern horizons,” ho said, “ are very wide, 
and the light obscure. In the twilight the shadows 
move to and fro ; we give these shapes names, but their 


CORRUPTION. 


19 


outlines shift as they approach and recede. Humanity 
is like a watcher standing on a tower looking into the 
night, awaiting a new dawn. The world is weary of old 
parties, of obsolescent prejudices, of ancient cries, of 
bloodless platitudes. My chief fear, gentlemen, is that 
pessimism should invade political existence as it has 
invaded social life. So many generations of men have 
helped to make laws whose benefits appear infinitesimal 
when compared with their initial promise that despair 
is not without its excuses. But hope alone can keep 
the world sweet. However we may differ, however often 
our convictions may drive us into different lobbies, we 
can at least all belong to one great human party — the 
party which never despairs of human progress. To- 
night, at least, gentlemen, we can claim to belong to 
the party of hope.” 

Carew had learnt to pitch this thin cry in different 
keys, but it always had the ring of sincerity. He be- 
lieved the human race possessed the innate power of 
savifig itself, but he was convinced legislators exagger- 
ated their own importance as factors in social progress. 
This solaced a deficient sense of public duty. A vague 
belief in the success of human society is not a robust 
creed, but shadowy aspirations appease the least hurried 
forms of modern democracy, thanks to the dogma of 
evolution which is the basis on which Labour candi- 
dates with a school board education reconstruct their 
society of to-morrow with the bricks of to-day. 

A horizon is always restful to the eye and brain, and 
although Carew’s speech was as indefinite as a moth 


20 


CORRUPTION. 


seen in the twilight, it answered the purpose for which 
it was intended, and the diners separated with more 
cordiality than they had met. 

“ Thank goodness that’s over,” said Muir, as the last 
Labour guest departed, thoughtfully sucking a wooden 
pipe, imperfectly convinced, in the dimmest corner of 
his mind, that he had not been subjected to some de- 
lusive form of moral massage, removing for the moment 
the wrinkles of doubt and suspicion, his political 
heritage. 

That evening Mrs. Muir was “ at home,” but she 
had abstained from sending a card to any of the diners. 
When the footman had closed the doors on the last 
dinner guest, the two politicians went up to the great 
drawing-room. 

Carew found Constance Muir, who was a master- 
piece of English prettiness, a graceful change for the 
sullen politicians with their weight of care and lack of 
the amenities. 

“ I hope you enjoyed your dinner,” said Mrs. Muir. 
“ You got rid of your guests sooner than we expected. 
Stephen tells me Independent members of Parliament, 
when they include the most jorogressive elements, can 
hardly dine without disagreeing.” 

“Earnest people are always a little difficult,” said 
Carew, smiling ; “ they are also extremely unfashion- 
able, but they are not nearly so ferocious as some of the 
papers pretend. I suggested that we should hold our 
revels at the ‘ Ilolborn,’ but Mr. Muir wouldn’t listen 
to me.” 


CORRUPTION. 


21 


“ He is quite right,” she replied. ‘‘ Now he has 
identified himself with the rebels, he must make the 
best of it. The new political distinctions are a little 
bewildering, but no doubt essential.” 

“ I fear they are,” he answered, glancing towards 
Constance Muir so as to include her in the conversation ; 
“ the new democracy has so many heads, and the type 
in the House is constantly changing ; but what do you 
think. Miss Muir ? ” 

The girl looked at him earnestly, but answered 
lightly. 

“ I have discovered,” she said, “ that to be a follower 
of yours gives one a sort of notoriety. The newspapers 
are always talking of Mr. Carew and the ‘ new Jacobins.’ 
To be a Carewite is to escape being overlooked. But 
why don’t you wear a cloth cap and carry a fat umbrella, 
Mr. Carew?” 

“ Vanity forbids. Miss Muir. Both are convenient. 
But you mustn’t laugh at us. The ‘New Jacobins’ 
want to act as an antiseptic on your decadent Society. 
The cloth cap is merely a badge, a little ridiculous per- 
haps, but well-meaning.” 

“ When the new reign of terror comes, Mr. Carew, 
I shall look to you for protection. But you must have 
had enough politics. Who do you think is coming here 
to-night ? ” 

“ I’ve no idea.” 

“ A great friend of yours.” 

“ What is his name ? ” 

“ Her name vou mean.” 

V 


22 


CORRUPTION. 


• “ Mrs. Manuering ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I’m glad of that.” 

“So am I,” she answered, “for I admire her im- 
mensely.” 

The room was now filling with Mrs. Muir’s friends, 
and the usual second-rate lions with first-rate preten- 
sions. Whilst he chatted with Miss Muir, Carew 
watched the door for Beatrice, with a longing of which 
he was half ashamed. 

They were seated behind a large palm rooted in a 
magnificent Chinese vase, around which there twined 
in inextricable coils, snakes and dragons with grotesque 
claws and golden scales, whilst a majestic bird hovered 
above. “ Which things,” said Carew, “ I suppose are 
an allegory. They might be the souls of ^politicians in 
purgatory.” 

“Do they go there?” she asked, smiling. 

“ 0 yes — certainly.” 

“ All of them.” 

“ Without one exception.” • 

“ Even the good ones, like you ? ” 

“ Yes, the very best of us. Even the immaculate 
Greville and the temperance reformers. That big, hun- 
gry fellow swallowing the snake’s tail is meant for me.” 

“ He is the wickedest and greediest of them all ! 
See ! there is an eagle hovering over the reptiles. Be 
the eagle, Mr. Carew.” 

“ But suppose there is no place for the noble bird in 
these degenerate days, Miss Muir, what shall I do ? ” 


CORRUPTION. 


23 


“ Make a place then — that is, if you haven’t made 
it already.” 

The girl was more than half in earnest. While 
they had been carelessly chatting, Beatrice Mannering 
had entered the room. As she approached the corner 
where they sat, both rose to greet her. 

“ I have been explaining to Mr. Carew,” said Miss 
Muir, pointing to the great vase, “ that these monsters 
represent the souls of politicians in a parliamentary 
Inferno. You can see how grave it has made 
him.” 

“We do our ‘fasting in fires’ in the House,” he re- 
plied, “ and are our own souls in hell.” 

“ I fancy most intelligent people outside Parliament 
pay the same penalty,” said Beatrice. 

As she stooped under the shaded electric light above 
them, the diamonds in her bronze-brown hair flashed 
back a jubilant ripple of flame, contrasting strangely 
with the calm of her steadfast eyes. 

Once he had told her he loved her in white satin and 
diamonds. “ Beautiful witch,” he whispered, as a long- 
haired gentleman claimed Miss Muir’s attention, “ You 
are not' Circe to-night, but ‘ La Belle Dame Sans 
Merci.’ She had diamonds like you, and deep eyes that 
sucked out her lovers’ souls.” 

“ Yes, flatter me ! I am thirsting for admiration to- 
night, Paul. I can’t live without it.” 

“ Whose ? ” 

“ Yours first, then everybody’s, down to the foot- 

5 ) 


men. 


24 


CORRUPTION. 


“ You shall bo placed on a pedestal like Aphrodite 
and worshipped.” 

“ Yes, with lovely rites, flowers, music, incense. If 
you could be my high priest, I should love it.” 

“ I am the weak wretch over whom you weave spells. 
But are you happy to-night?” 

“Erankly — yes. At least nearly. I thought this 
dress became me, and the diamonds too. When I 
think I’m well dressed I feel like you do after making 
a clever speech. Our vanity is not unlike, only differ- 
ent in degree.” 

She smiled at him with the smile she gave no one 
else, it lived chiefly in her eyes, and only faintly parted 
her red lips. 

“ But you oughtn’t to he happy.” 

“ Why not, Paul ? I’m perfectly natural, and that 
goes a long way towards it. Besides I am always telling 
you its a relative state. I know I ask too much. Still 
I have most things a woman wants. Money without 
stint, youth, health — and a husband who never inter- 
feres with me, and whom some women envy me, and 
you — for a friend, Paul.” 

Her abandonment touched him. 

After a little pause, filled by the ripple of voices 
around them, she asked suddenly, “ But you don’t think 
I’m wicked?” 

“ You are good to me ; that is all I care. What evil 
has been done, I did. I loved you then, and I love you 
now. It is like fate — fate, the eternal scapegoat.” 

The millionaire’s magnificence dwindled and faded 


CORRUPTION. 


25 


away before his whispers. Through the silken dra- 
peries they seemed to look at the unsoiled life behind, 
across the familiar west-country landscapes, where the 
jagged granite hills cut the sunset. 

“ You and I are rustics,” she said. “ The west coun- 
try still clings to your tongue. But I’ve something to 
say, and am afraid to say it. I am going for a few days 
to Portradock soon. Come, too.” 

He had not the courage to say, “ Is it safe ? ” But 
he felt the coil growing. There were elements in their 
relationship beyond his control. 

“ You are the star,” he said, glancing at her coronet 
of diamonds, “ and I am the moth.” 

“ But answer me, Paul.” 

“ Isn’t that answer enough ? ” V 

“Ho. The simile is a failure. There is no moth 
and no star — only ” 

“ What ? ” 

“ Well, only two weak hearts, Paul. But you will 
come. After all, happiness is the only thing in life 
that counts.” 

She had not the courage to add, “ and no one need 
ever know.” 

It was Stephen Muir that brought them back to rea- 
son and reality. A long list of lion-hunters desired 
to be presented to Carew, and a young guardsman car- 
ried off Beatrice to another room. 

But Beatrice’s brougham drove Carew back to Picca- 
dilly that night, and as her soft hand twined round his^ 
he said, “ I will come.” 


26 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER ly. 

Although soon after the Muirs’ last reception the 
papers reported that Mr. Paul Carew was at Homburg 
“ resting after the fatigues of the session,” he was really 
alone in his chambers in Piccadilly, trying to measure 
risks and count costs. The reaction, inevitable in a 
man of his temperament, had set in. After six years’ 
fighting he longed for Capua. The soft September 
days, even as their murmur reached him over the tree- 
tops of the park, were soothing. New lyrical cadences 
beat in his brain. There were moments when passion 
and desire, the great realities of life, exiled by conven- 
tion in a Siberia of cold phrases, half-blunted his long- 
ings, with the aid of memory. 

Whilst Beatrice was facing the problem in its shad- 
owy cloak of disaster by the sea at Portradock, he con- 
fronted it whilst the dust-laden leaves fluttered across 
the pavement of fashion-abandoned Piccadilly. Should 
he go? 

But a day came when his balance of remembered 
happiness was overdrawn. Portradock became an 
“ island valley of Avilion.” He pictured Beatrice 
against the blue grey line of the sea, or beheld her 
wandering alone by the tumbling stream that flowed 
down the steep valley over the granite boulders from 
the inland moors. Her presence deified the j)lace till it 
shone on his imagination like a clear white light 
through the darkness. 


CORRUPTION. 


27 


Finally, the obsession having become intolerable, he 
took the last train, and stepped on to the little platform. 
There was a smell of the sea in the air ; he heard the 
lapping of the tide against the quay, and the tinkle of 
the flowing waters in the upland valley. On the dark 
bay the lights of an anchored fishing fleet swayed to the 
swell. 

“ What name, sir ? ” asked the landlady at the one 
hotel, where he sought a room. 

“ Crewe,” he said, “ Mr. P. Crewe.” He lied me- 
chanically. 

The ancient sounds that haunt the sea and move 
like mysterious warnings between the dark sky and 
black waters moaned in ominous disapproval, till at 
last they cradled him into an anxious sleep. Soon 
after dawn the “ ho-hcave-ho ! ” of some fisher-folk on 
the quay awoke him. Looking from his window he 
beheld a brown sail rocking beyond the harbour bar. 
Then, as the beauty of the day stole into his healthy 
blood, the big shadows of dread were swamped in the 
sense of renewed youth. He was a boy again, and hur- 
ried out to bathe in the friendly cove under the cliffs. 
As the warm waves plashed cheerfully around his head 
they awoke the spirit of revolt. ■“ Nature is nature,” 
they seemed to say, and “ man is man.” 

He swam out to sea with the feeling of rich youth 
and high courage in his heart. Looking shorewards, 
he saw the brown cottages with the big fuchsias in the 
narrow gardens and the great yellow splashes of the 
sunflowers; then, higher still, the white cottage with 


28 


CORRUPTION. 


its hedge of waving tamarisk, where Beatrice was sleep- 
ing. Overhead in the happy sky the kittiewakes were 
calling, whilst troops of fleecy cloud rolled in on the 
morning breeze. 

“ Surely,” he thought, “ it is because we are one 
with nature that the light and the sea steal into our 
blood and say, ‘ Live and love.’ Where are my misgiv- 
ings now ? ” 

They were under a golden veil for an hour. But 
the kiss nature gave him cleared his vision and 
made him see things in a purer light. His very 
ambitions dwindled, and he shouted at the sweep- 
ing sea-birds and the leaping waves in sheer delight of 
living. 

Carew’s ambitious horizons resembled Bishop 
Bloughram’s religious faith. They were not flxed ab- 
solutely and exclusively. 

A steep winding lane through a tangled hedge 
shaved by the sea-winds and leaning landwards led to 
the white cottage. 

Beatrice and he had often climbed it together when 
they were children. Something of the early innocence 
lay upon him that morning and helped his growing 
resolution. The spaces of blue sunny sea, seen through 
the yellowing trees and flickering bramble leaves, linked 
themselves with the unrecorded memories of boyhood, 
till the morning and its emotions became the inevitable 
offspring of the past. 

The path wound slowly up round meadows where 
cows were browsing. Through a break in the hedge, 


COHRUPTION. 


29 


slowly descending, suddenly lie beheld a lady in a white 
dress. 

He knew that the sea sparkled and that the red 
admiral butterflies were fluttering over the nettlebeds, 
but felt the intervening years rolling away as he recog- 
nised Beatrice. The spell of the moment stayed his 
feet, and he watched her coming. 

“ Paul ! Paul ! ” she cried, “ how lovely you have 
made the world look.” 

They followed a narrower path leading to the high 
solitudes above the little port, where the moors ended in 
broken granite cliffs. In a furzy hollow they found a 
seat on a warm rock, and had all the channel for their 
prospect. 

“ You came here to think, Beatrice,” he said. 
“ Have you arrived at anything ? ” 

Only one thing. I can’t give you up.” 

“ We must face it through.” 

“ But are we not facing it? ” 

“ iSTo — drifting.” 

“ Well, doesn’t one always drift when one is happy? 
Look at the boat with the brown sail rounding the 
point. It has seen calm and soft winds — all a boat 
can want. Let us drift like that — for a little while.” 

“ But the boat isn’t drifting. There’s a hand on the 
helm. If the tide serve, it will be in Portradock before 
noon. There is no one steering us, Beatrice.” 

“ Then you must. I can’t. When we were a boy 
and girl here long ago you always managed for 
me.” 


30 


CORRUPTION. 


“ One must pay for everything in this world, 
Beatrice. Let us realise that first.” 

“ Not for — for love, Paul,” she urged, faltering over 
the word. “ Love is as natural as air and light.” 

“ In nature, yes, but not in our artificial society, un- 
less legalised with a formula. We must pay. Can’t 
you see the disgrace ? ” 

“ Sometimes I can see nothing else. To-day I won’t 
see it ; I shut it out.” 

Then as he looked at her the better side of his char- 
acter shone on his face. 

“ But it can’t be shut out, Beatrice,” he said reso- 
lutely. “ Let us decide to-day to pay the price. There 
are two ways open to us.” 

“ Don’t look like that, Paul. Hold my two hands 
tight in yours and never mind the price to-day. I’m 
not a hypocrite, but, after all, innocence and virtue are 
only useless words to measure a love and a temptation 
like ours. I can’t stand in the market-place in the 
white sheet of — what is it ? — repentance. I only know 
how I feel. There isn’t an atom of remorse in my 
heart. What there is there, you can guess. Let us 
leave painful things to-day, and give our hearts a holi- 
day. Are we not here all alone in this place of sweet 
memories, with all the sky above and the sea below. 
Look at the white gulls, smell the thyme, and forget the 
eternal question of commonplace right and wrong for 
an hour. It is just heaven to have you here.” 

She guessed what he wished to say, and longed to 
stop him. 


CORRUPTION. 


31 


“ Beatrice ! Beatrice ! write to Mannering, tell him 
everything and come abroad with me. That is what I 
have come to ask you to do.” 

All the colour left her face. 

“ But the ruin and disgrace?” 

“ They are the price we must pay. I must resign 
my seat, of course.” 

He, usually so anxious to spare her feelings, put the 
case as brutally as he could, and she winced under it. 

Then in her turn she rose resolutely to her feet, 
holding his hands in her gloveless palms. 

“ I would sooner,” she said, “ never see you again 
than let you ruin your career for me. No woman in 
the world is worth that, Paul ; can’t you understand 
that I want you and your crown too.” 

“ But if I wished it. If it were my dearest hope ? ” 

“ Nothing,” she replied, “ will ever induce me to 
consent.” 

Then Carew looked round at the breezy expanse of 
sea and sky to gather courage from the sense of im- 
mensity in which man has no part. 

“ The other alternative,” he said, “ is that we never 
meet again like this after to-day.” 

But she shaped the future in her swift brain before 
she answered. 

“But isn’t there a middle course, Paul. Don’t 
shake your head. There must be. Can’t we be 
friends ? ” 

“ When I came here last night and the people at the 

hotel down there asked my name I called myself ‘ Mr. 

3 


32 


CORRUPTION. 


P. Crewe.’ I caught myself lying mechanically, just 
like one of the criminal classes. How can you and I 
undergo the degradation — if — if ” 

“Don’t say it, Paul. Don’t say it. We can re- 
nounce some things. Long ago you told me to read 
Shelley’s ‘ Epipsychidion.’ It taught me things, it 
taught me things ! You and I grew up together, but 
we missed our best chance. Isn’t there a second best ? 
If you let me see you occasionally I shall be content. 
Yo heroic measures please, Paul, dear ! There’s nothing 
of the heroine in me. I’m just a woman clinging to 
the fraction of affection no husband in the world can 
prevent you giving me.” 

“ Then I shall never kiss you again nor hold your 
dear fingers tight in mine.” 

“ No, Paul. At least not after to-day.” 

The tears flowed over her face and he comforted her 
tenderly, but she refused to look into the gulley of dis- 
grace before them. 

“ If you abandon me,” she said miserably, “ my life 
will be a "wreck. If I cling to you, yours will be ruined. 
Take the middle course, Paul.” 

But at last, when the storm-beaten clock of the old 
church below them struck two, Paul had to go to catch 
the single through train for London. 

He tore himself away at last, and descended the 
steep path alone. The sea sparkled, the salt breeze 
rose and shook the bramble leaves, and the sun was 
bright in the early autumn sky, but the glamour of 
the day was ended. 


CORRUPTION. 


33 


From the bottom of the slope he looked up to the 
summit of the cliff where Beatrice stood motionless 
against the sky line, but he never guessed that her tears 
had ceased to flow, and that she knew his, effort to 
escape had no real pith in it. 

“ It is,” she thought, “ the atonement we all make 
to our conscience.” 


CHAPTER V. 

Caee'W intended to keep to his resolution and avoid 
Beatrice. For greater security he went abroad. He 
stayed at Homburg, where he met a member of the 
Government who said, “ We look on you, Mr. Carew, 
rather as a brilliant ally than as a cut and dried sup- 
porter.” Although he was used to flattery, he was de- 
lighted to find it coming from such a quarter, and ac- 
cepted it as evidence that his reputation was assuming 
distinct shape. Some of his “ advanced ” friends spent 
the autumn in stumping the country under the shadow 
of his name. But growing fame, whilst it increased his 
restless ambition did nothing for his peace of mind. 
From Homburg he v/ent to Switzerland, from Switzer- 
land to Paris, thence to Monte Carlo, where he lost 
more money than he could spare. Wherever he was, 
he thought more of Beatrice Mannering than of 
politics. 

“ I will,” he boasted, “ be master of myself.” So he 
began to map out a future in which she had no part. 


34 


CORRUPTION. 


But in self-illusion he found a feeble consolation, and 
discontent dogged his steps. If she had written to him 
to come he would have obeyed at any risks. The 
autumn ran into winter but brought no letter. Man- 
nering was home again, and he knew they were to- 
gether. Jealousy crept forth from its lair and sat with 
the other evil gods in his mind. Still he neither 
pitied or despised himself, but tried to watch him- 
self from an outer circle of his own consciousness, 
until a new creed for the encouragement of his 
personal gratification grew from this morbid form of 
introspection. 

When reduced to its naked proportions, its teaching 
was simply, “ Because my love is great and my tempta- 
tions greater still, my passion must be the guiding force 
of my life.” 

He reviewed himself as though he was the protag- 
onist of a Greek drama working out the will of an 
god. Pride of intellect and a contempt for the 
dullness of other men forbade him classing himself with 
vulgar sinners who act on similar motives. Distance 
and silence helped to brighten the romantic halo which 
clung round Beatrice and himself. 

At the beginning of December he returned to 
London. Aldis, an “ Independent,” whose political 
mentor he had been, wished to resign his seat. 

“ I won’t apply for the Chilton Hundreds,” he 
wrote, “until I see you. The seat might suit a friend 
of yours.” 

He was member for Dawton, a manufacturing town 


CORRUPTION. 


35 


in revolt against tradition, and coloured impartially by 
every democratic shade. 

Carew thought he could induce Greville to back his 
candidate, and at once consulted Muir on the matter. 

The Carewites had talents and energy, but needed 
wealth and the aroma of respectability it brings to the 
British mind. 

They met in Muir’s study the day after Carew’s 
arrival in town. 

“ AYe have caught the tag-rag and bobtail of revolt,” 
said Carew, “ now we must attract the mutinous rich.” 

The idea appealed to Muir, who in his present 
political surroundings suggested an ingot-laden East 
Indiaman among a swarm of piratical craft. 

A malicious press continually advertised the ridic- 
ulous aspects of his position. He thought its irony 
would be softened if a few more men of his class kept 
him company. Amateur Socialism loses half its terrors 
when preached by a millionaire. 

At one of his amiable and platitudinous lectures in 
his own constituency on the whole duties of a modern 
statecraft, a disrespectful hearer once shouted, “ AYhy 
don’t you divide the brewery, then ? ” The poor man 
never forget the “ vulgar interruption.” 

“ If,” said Muir, “ we get a few well-to-do men of 
broad views to join us, we shall be able to shed our 
disreputable tail. These Socialist fellows will turn and 
bite you, Carew, some day.” 

“ They will scarcely bite their creator,” said Carew 
contemptuously. “Several of them would be talking 


3G 


CORRUPTION. 


on chairs in Hyde Park on Sunday if I hadn’t pro- 
moted them.” 

“ There’s no gratitude in politics,” replied Muir 
resentfully, “ and Greville’s the best living specimen of 
it. But never mind that; I know you’ve done won- 
ders, although even you can’t help those Socialists 
giving us away.” 

“I built the party up,” answered Carew, who dis- 
liked criticism, “ with the best material to hand. Get 
me better bricks, and I’ll see it’s solid enough. Find a 
rich man to take Aldis’s place. I’ll induce the Prime 
Minister to guarantee him a fair field.” 

“ I think I know the right man,” returned Muir 
thoughtfully. “ But come upstairs. The ladies want 
to see you.” 

Constance Muir, who looked pinker and prettier 
than ever, was visibly glad to see him. 

“You haven’t a holiday face, Mr. Carew,” she said. 
“ I believe you have been taking counsel with the 
wicked French politicians, as the Society papers hint.” 

“We’ll shake this com]3lacent constitution if we 
can,” he said, laughing gently. “ But what have you 
been doing all these months ? ” 

“We were in Scotland for some time, expecting you 
in vain to come and help kill the grouse. Then I came 
South and spent October with the Mannerings at El- 
court. They are charming hosts, and it’s a beautiful 
old place. They are both hot Carewites. She declares 
you are the only man who ‘ realises the directions of 
the new democracy.’ ” 


COi^IlUPTION. 


37 


He was pleased. “ She evidently reads the Cornet^'' 
he answered. “ That is the invariable retort of the 
editor, whenever my enemies call me a ‘ new revolu- 
tionist.’ But do you ever stand up for so unfashionable 
a politician, Miss Muir ? ” 

“ Often. I quarrelled with a partner about you 
the other evening. He had the effrontery to say 
you w^ere ‘playing your own game,’ and that you 
would ‘ sell the country for a place in the Ministry.’ 
I told him that w’as quite the silliest remark I had 
ever heard.” 

“ You are a splendid champion.” 

“ Ah ! you may laugh ; still the mouse can help the 
lion sometimes.” 

“ Your natural history’s at fault. There’s no mouse 
in the allegory, only a white dove. I only hope the 
sweet bird will continue to be a Carewite.” The girl’s 
colour deepened at the caress in his voice. When, a 
few minutes later, he rose to go, the kind little palm 
lingered a moment in his. 

“ She makes Muir’s house a pleasant place,” he 
thought, “ and some day she will make another man’s 
pleasanter still. And I know he will give her a hun- 
dred thousand pounds when she marries.” 


38 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER YL 

A FEW da3"S later Carew received a telegram from 
Muir, which said : “ Dine here to-night to meet the 
very man.” 

Muir ran into the hall the moment the footman 
opened the door. 

“ Mannering’s our man ! ” he exclaimed, in the tone 
of one sure that his news will be well received. 

Something like a superstitious shudder passed over 
Carew. The devil seemed busy with his affairs. 

A moment’s reflection told him who was the con- 
triver of the business. Still, his surprise was visible in 
his face. 

“ Mannering ! ” he exclaimed. “ Which one ? ” 

“ Y’our friend, the Sussex one, to be sure.” 

“ He’s the last man I expected.” 

‘‘ Why ? He’s a gentleman, he’s rich, and he won’t 
worry you.” 

“ I thought he only cared for salmon-rods and 
the points of horses. What is he going into politics 
for ? ” 

“ To please his wife, perhaps, like a good many 
more.” 

Then Carew hesitated. If he chose he might raise 
obstacles to prevent Mannering contesting the seat, but 
was it worth while? There was a fascination in the 
very dangers of the situation after his ten weeks’ fast 
in the desert. But the motive urging him to acquiesce 


CORRUPTION. 


39 


was ignoble, so he thrust it away, and tried to believe it 
honest. 

“ I hope I’ve done right,” said Muir, seeing his 
friend’s hesitation, as they walked up the wide staircase 
to the drawing room. 

“ Certainly. Mannering’s a link with the ‘ smart ’ 
people not to be despised.” 

Carew had scarcely met Mannering since Beatrice’s 
wedding, and remembered him as a big, blue-eyed, 
amiable sportsman, and found him unchanged. Whilst 
they shook hands, Beatrice looked on with an unruffled 
face. Mannering talked with a boyish frankness and 
cordiality which was attractive. 

“ It is a long time since we met, Mr. Carew,” he 
said. “ I’ve been a bad citizen and a wandering one, 
so we’ve made very different records.” 

“ But what strange accident has sent you into 
our camp?” asked Carew, swiftly glancing towards 
Beatrice. 

Mannering laughed pleasantly. 

“ Oh ! a whole lot. Penitence, patriotism, and 
your example, which has been constantly held up 
before my eyes. Muir caught me as a possible re- 
cruit, because he thinks I’ve knocked off the preju- 
dices of a country squire without acquiring those of an 
advanced Radical. At any rate, I hope I shall not be 
much below your standard, and that you’ll try to give 
me a lift.” 

“ I will ask the Prime Minister to smooth the way 
for you,” said Carew. “But you must harden your- 


40 


CORRUPTION. 


self. Half the papers in the kingdom will weep over 
your fall, and exhibit you as the last example of polit- 
ical decadence.” 

‘‘ In fact, they will abuse you as they did me,” said 
Muir, “ but you’ll get used to that.” 

“ Besides,” added Carew, “ you needn’t subscribe to 
a press-cutting agency.” 

“ I hope I’m too good a sportsman to care what is 
said about me,” said Mannering. 

“ I’ve schooled him so well by constant criticism,” 
said Beatrice, smiling at Carew, “ that he has grown 
callous.” 

“ That of itself,” returned Carew, in assumed play- 
fulness, “ is a liberal education.” 

“ The severest criticism is always that of our own 
household, isn’t it, Connie ? ” said Muir to his daughter, 
who had just then entered the room. 

“ Mamma and I are almost always so sure you are 
right, after you’ve explained your position. Papa, that 
we are quite bewildered to find the newspapers taking 
another view.” 

“ I make a point of never reading the papers that 
abuse us,” said Mrs. Muir. “ When first Stephen en- 
tered public life I used to read everything, but my doc- 
tor told me the habit must be abandoned, or I should 
grow hysterical.” 

“ I always find the hysteria on the side of the news- 
papers,” said Carew. “Abuse is an excellent tonic; 
still, I prefer flattery, although it isn’t nearly so good 
for me.” 


CORRUPTION. 


41 


“ As for me,” said Beatrice, “ I confess I consider all 
adverse criticism unjust and impertinent. When I was 
at school, my music master had to praise me, otherwise 
I wept my eyes out.” 

“ But there isn’t any real criticism to be found in 
the newspapers,” said Muir. 

‘‘You are like the Prime Minister,” said Carew, 
“ who thinks they are only valuable because they tell a 
man how to do the wrong thing in the wrong way and 
at the wrong time.” 

“ Why, I was in hopes we were to have government 
by newspapers,” said Miss Muir. “ I once won a prize 
in a girl’s paper, and have felt ever since that I was 
helping to rule the world.” 

Then they filed into dinner — a small party of six, 
in a great dining-room, with a lofty, gilded ceiling. 
Under the shaded lights, the red and white roses made 
a fairy garden. 

Mrs. Muir’s fashionable conversation, her daughter’s 
pretty contralto chatter, Mannering’s boyish good- 
nature and sporting talk formed a new background 
for Carew to see Beatrice. The power of self-guidance 
he thought he had regained at Portradock was nearly 
lost. He found his mantle of hypocrisy an elastic 
garment and its texture softer than silk. Ho one 
could have worn hers more charmingly than Beatrice, 
who looked over the brink of the social precipice with- 
out the least sign of giddiness or terror. “After all, 
whether we fall or not,” thought Carew, “ is merely a 
question of balance.” 


42 


CORRUPTION. 


When dinner was over, Muir turned Mannering and 
Carew into his study. They sat in the big arm-chairs 
smoking before the blazing logs spurting blue and red 
flames which the heavy furniture of the room reflected 
in cheerful gleams. 

“ The more I think of it,” said Carew, resuming 
the conversation of the dining-room, “ the more I 
am astonished that you should want a seat on our 
side of the House. Mrs. Mannering never led me 
to imagine that you took the slightest interest in 
politics.” 

Mannering laughed cheerily. 

“ A man must do something serious some day, Mr. 
Carew. But I’ll be frank with you. You have known 
my wife all her life, and she considers you her oldest 
friend. Well, she’s clever, as you know, and she’s am- 
bitious. I don’t mind telling you that I want to ride 
the political hack quite as much for her amusement as 
mine. It’s like this,” he continued, seeing Carew 
expected him to say more, “ Beattie has given me my 
fling. All this autumn I was in Norway; the greater 
part of last year I spent in the Rockies ; the winter 
before that I was up the Zambesi trying to shoot hippos. 
Well, this sort of thing isn’t fair on a woman. There 
are duties, you know, and when a fellow’s married, he 
must make the best of it. I intend to try.” 

“ But when I met Mrs. Mannering here, just at the 
end of the session, she never said anything of your 
intention,” said Carew. 

“ She hadn’t thought of it then.” 


CORRUPTION. 


43 


“ I knew, of course, that she was interested in 
politics.” 

“ Yes, very. Fancies you’ll be Prime Minister some 
day. There isn’t a stauncher Carewite going. At first 
we wrangled a bit over it, but in the end she converted 
me. ‘ The old parties,’ according to her, ‘ are dying, 
and new ones are forming out of their fragments.’ 
You’re the man who sees clearest what must happen, 
and that’s why she wants me to back your mount, and I 
mean to, all I know. But do you think I shall get in 
for Dawton ? ” 

“ Yes, I’m nearly certain of it. Aldis had a big 
majority — much too big to be whittled away — and 
you’ll have the ministerial support.” 

When their cigars were finished they went upstairs. 
“ A fine fellow, Carew,” thought Mannering. “ Suc- 
cess hasn’t spoilt him a bit. No ‘side’ about him 
at all.” 

Before the party broke up, and whilst Miss Muir 
was playing a long sonata, Carew managed to exchange 
a few words to Beatrice. 

“ Don’t frown at me, Paul,” she said, “ it isn’t all my 
fault.” 

He felt it was scarcely worth while to contradict 
her. 

“ Do you ever believe,” he asked, “ in a maleficent 
force weaving mischief behind the affairs of men ? ” 

“ No. It is one of those ridiculous superstitions 
which I was born without ; perhaps because my father 
was a clergyman.” 


44 


CORRUPTION. 


“ Then you don’t consider the devil a convenient 
personality, invented as an excuse for our own 
sins ? ” 

“ I never consider unpleasant things, so he has always 
been left out of my calculations.” 

“ You are in excellent spirits, Beatrice.” 

“Why should not I be? We had a very pleasant 
dinner.” 

“ Yes ; and you are having entirely your own way. 
You pull strings, the rest of us dance. You ought to 
be happy.” 

“ Don’t be cynical ! ” 

“I’m not. You remember what we said at Port- 
rad ock. You must have seen then that I was struggling 
feebly towards the right. You knew the lightest leaf of 
temptation would weigh down the scale on the other 
side. Can’t you see w’e are all being cooped up in a 
vicious circle, with the walls closing in like they did in 
Poe’s ghastly story.” 

“ But, Paul, don’t blame me ; it isn’t my fault.” 

“ Mannering told me you sent him into politics. 
How do you suppose I can look him in the face ? ” 

“By forgetting the past. We start fresh after 
Portradock, and this is the first stage on the jour- 
ney.” 

“ Criminals always do start fresh,” he answered 
gloomily, “but the road leads back to the old place. 
The governor of a convict prison told me that not one 
in a hundred of them ever repents, no matter what he 
may find it expedient to tell the chaplain. I’m a 


COIIRUPTION. 


45 


malefactor of this kind, and so long as you bring us 
together again I am quite ready to rejoice.” 

But she hated him to take the veil of romance from 
their relations. 

“ Don’t talk so recklessly,” she said. “ It isn’t like 
your philosophy of life at all.” 

“ I suppose,” he continued, as though discussing a 
question in which they had no personal stake, “ that 
there must be some unknown proportion between 
temptation and sin, whence an average might be struck 
if we could only discover it. If it is ever found, it will 
be a painful surprise to the virtuous people who throw 
the first stone, and choose a large one, to discover they 
must change places with the victim of accident they are 
pelting so cheerfully.” 

But the music ended, and Carew’s latest doctrine of 
sin was lost in the mists of a general conversation on the 
subject of Paderewski’s touch. 


CHAPTER VII. 

Paul Carew was gradually re-adjusting his elastic 
ethics to suit the conditions of his existence. These 
changes are not defined in words by the transmuter of 
them, so are rarely seen in their native ugliness. Society 
as at present constituted, argued Carew, when his con- 
science rebelled, has no vacant places for saints and 
heroes, who are as rare in humanity as epic poems in 


46 


CORRUPTION. 


literature. An easy average of laxity is demanded by 
the levelling processes of the day. 

Beatrice and he met often now. “We must school 
ourselves,” she used to say plaintively. “ It is difficult, 
I know, but if others can, why can’t we ? ” 

This was the foundation on which Carew was learn- 
ing to build. He understood her to mean that they 
must derive as much happiness from their lives as 
might be socially safe. A greater enigma to him 
than ever, the new glimpses he was acquiring into 
her character deeply interested him, when it did not 
torture him. 

Her feelings towards her husband were inexplicable, 
unless viewed from a squalid hypothesis he scornfully 
rejected. One day he met them together in Bond 
Street, laughing and talking with the easy abandon- 
ment bred of a perfect understanding. Mannering 
had just given her a superb diamond bracelet, and 
they stayed to show it to Carew. Then, as they sep- 
arated in Piccadilly, all the obscure resentments gath- 
ering within him v/ere converted to acute jealousies. 
The next day he vrent to Bensings and bought a 
diamond pendant which she had long admired, and 
owed 250 guineas for it. 

In the afternoon, when he knew he should find her 
at home and alone, he gave it to her. Her eyes shone 
with pleasure. 

“ 0 Paul ! wffiat have you done ! It is beautiful. 
You cannot afford to squander your money on me.” 

“ If he gives you diamonds,” said Carew sullenly. 


CORRUPTION. 


47 


“I sliiill give you diamonds. The less I can afford, 
the more I want to give. I offered you everything at 
Portradock, but you said no.” 

Then she closed the case, and flung her arms round 
his neck and kissed him. 

“ Thank you, dear Paul,” she said, “ I know how 
you feel. Every time you think of me you give me a 
priceless diamond. But there is a menace in your 
gift. I shall only wear them for you as a signal of 
distress.” 

“ They are the emblems of my jealousy,” he an- 
swered. “ When unhappy wretches are knouted, they 
bite on a bullet. The pendant is my bullet, and wears 
the marks of my teeth and covers a scream. Whenever 
you look at it you will remember that. The diamonds 
will serve as a guide to memory, or, if you prefer some- 
thing less ominous, let them serve as a symbol of the 
success of your marriage. It is rather like one of those 
we read of in French novels, that, starting on an honest 
basis of aversion on the wife’s part, ends in the victory 
of her noble but simple husband. My diamonds are full 
of meaning.” 

“ If ever I wear this,” she answered, pointing to the 
pendant gleaming serenely under the lamp-light, “ it 
must be as a symbol of guilt — as a scarlet letter cf 
self-condemnation. ” 

Her look made him relent. 

“ Ho, Beatrice,” he said, “ let the diamonds be the 

symbol of my love. They will be near your heart, and 

vibrate whenever it beats. Forgive me for beiug eaten 
4 


4S 


CORRUPTION. 


up with jealous 5 ^ Sometimes I hate Maunering. You 
have tied us both to your chariot, and we drag you 
along — I miserably, wdth my head in a mask of hy- 
pocrisy, he complacently biting a legitimate bit. But 
the shafts press heavily on me.” 

“ But you don’t want me to quarrel with Ger- 
ald ? ” 

“ I don’t know what I want.” 

She looked at him fixedly. “ You promised you 
w^ould be reasonable.” 

“ But there isn’t any reason in me when you are con- 
cerned. The other day, when Mannering smoothed the 
little curls at the back of your neck to show how Jane 
Hading wore her hair in that French play, I was ill with 
rage. I have to suppress everything — to drive my re- 
sentments into a narrow corner in my heart, where they 
fight it out and destroy all my peace.” 

“ Poor Paul ! ” she said softly, moved by his troubled 
face, “ it is hard, I know. But do you imagine that I 
am happy ? Pity me, and never scold me if I try to 
make the best of it. Gerald has always been kind. 
There are some things that I can’t explain, and which 
I must leave you to guess. I look on life as a woman, 
and you as a man. Some one says : ‘ Tout comprendre 
c’est moitie pardonner.’ Because our temperaments are 
different, you mustn’t imagine that your crown of thorns 
is sharper than mine. Yfe only wear them with a differ- 
ence ! If I had let you destroy your career for me, do 
you suppose we should have been happier? I’m a reed 
in the river. 


CORRUPTION. 


49 


‘ What saith the river to the rushes grey, 

River slowly wending, 

Rushes slowly bending, 

Who can tell the untold things they say ? 

Youth and prime 
And summer time 
For ever, ever fled away ! ’ 

I feel the current and bend to it. ‘ Youth and prime 
and summer time ’ mustn’t be all lost to you and me 
because I wear a wedding ring and don’t hate Gerald. 
I can’t tell you what I feel more closely than that. 
Y^ou must bend in the stream too. It is useless to 
struggle against it. Tlie strongest of us are only reeds. 
Beware lest you break, and spoil our two lives.” 

Then Circe w^ove her magic about him, and for a 
while dispelled his cares. And as time accustomed him 
to her yoke, he bore it less rebelliously. The pessimism 
of the day came to his rescue. When a man can per- 
suade himself that honour and dishonour merely repre- 
sented two different modes of viewing human conduct 
he can batten uproariously “ on the fat things that the 
devil prepares for his elect.” 

Soon tlie eternal irony that clings like a dry dust to 
the affairs of men willed it that Mannering should be 
filled with a confiding, unintelligent, and boyish ad- 
miration of Carew. 

The business connected with the approaching elec- 
tion threw them constantly together. 

“ You will come down and see me through the 
election, Carew,” was Mannering’s constant request. 

At first Carew found excuses. But they were mere 


50 


CORRUPTION. 


sops for the private consumption of an half atrophied 
conscience. 

“ If I’m licked, and you’re not there,” Mannering 
urged, “ I shall always fancy it’s my fault. You’ve 
given us one big lift — hasn’t he, Beattie ? so do come 
down to Dawton and pull us through.” 

He identified his wife with his electoral enterprise, 
and they were both full of the new excitement. 

The countenance of the Premier, as Carew had 
promised, was not withheld, and Mannering was de- 
lighted with his public prominence, but nervous as to 
the result. 

“ You mustn’t let me be made an ass of, must he, 
Beattie,” he used to say, appealing to his wife for sup- 
port. 

Finally, it was arranged that Carew should go down 
with them to Dawton and help Mannering “ over the 
course.” 

“ I’m only a dashed amateur at this business, and 
don’t know the ropes,” he said, in a constant fluster 
from long interviews with his agent. 

But Mannering was a stronger candidate than his 
modesty permitted him to believe. His frankness, and 
wide reputation as “ a true sportsman,” made an ex- 
cellent impression in his favour. Every local club in 
Dawton, from the two football teams to the harriers, 
knew they could rely on big subscriptions, and prepared 
elaborate programmes for the year which was to follow 
his election. 

Dawton is a seaport of some importance, with a con- 


CORRUPTION. 


51 


siderable shipbuilding trade, ironworks, and with some 
pretensions to be a watering place. The only element 
in the constituency which Mannering had seriously to 
fear was the “ villadom ” population and lodging-house 
keepers of New Dawton, where a pier and a giant hotel 
attracted summer visitors. 

Aldis, the late member, kept his resignation a secret 
as long as possible, and Mannering was thus enabled to 
be the first in the field. The Opposition, who were 
quite ill-prepared for the contest, had some difficulty 
in finding a candidate willing to fight a losing game. 

Carew and half-a-dozen robust orators went down to 
Dawton a fortnight before the polling-day, and joined 
the Mannerings, who had been busily canvassing. 

Beatrice entered into the business with all the en- 
ergy a woman finds in a fresh excitement. She invaded 
the homes of the most obstinate supporters of Mr. 
Spencer, the rival candidate, and her importunity al- 
most invariably escaped the rebuff it merited. 

“ By George, Carew ! ” said Mannering, admiringly, 
“ Beattie’s a regular brick ! She’s been worrying Spen- 
cer’s people out of their lives. She had a tremendous 
argument with a retired sea captain over at New Daw- 
ton yesterday. ‘ If you were a man, ma’am,’ he said, 
‘I should consider it my duty to order you off the 
premises ’ — a semi-detached doll’s house with two 
lodgers ! — ‘ but,’ he went on, ‘ as you’re a lady, I prom- 
ise I’ll vote for your goodman if I like the look of him.’ 
So he will too, unless he hears me speak.” 

Meanwhile Spencer, a briefless barrister with strong 


52 


CORRUPTION. 


lungs and exceeding fluency, was making a capital 
flglit. He nearly lost his voice in demonstrating that 
business in the shipbuilding yards was falling off in 
consequence of Carew’s views on economic questions. 

“ It is a little hard,” said Paul, when he read the 
accusation in the local paper, “ since I have expressed 
none.” 

“ What,” asked Spencer, “ do you think of a poli- 
tician without a policy, gentlemen ? Mr. Carew is the 
great parliamentary hoodwinker of the day. He has 
come amongst you to wheedle you into voting for a 
gentleman whose sole claim to represent you is a taste 
for field-sports and the possession of a charming wife. 
I want you, gentlemen, to make Mr. Carew and his 
satellites understand that their intervention in this 
conflict is a mistake, and to show them that they repre- 
sent a minus quantity in this great, enterprising, and 
rational constituency. The only way to restore peace 
and prosperity to our politician-afflicted state is to wipe 
out of existence all the little groups whose votes and 
influence Mr. Carew has learnt to exploit scientifically. 
I do not make this statement to bring a personal ele- 
ment into the contest, gentlemen, but because I have 
spent the best years of my life in studying the problem.” 

On the following day, a local paper published a 
cartoon representing Carew, in the garb of a coster- 
monger, driving the Government over the 5^awning 
abyss of “anarchy, socialism, and ruin.” The senile 
donkey which drew the cart was a caricature of the 
Prime Minister. 


CORRUPTION. 


53 


But the election was yet to be won. Spencer in- 
voked a dozen societies to intervene, if possible, on his 
behalf ; and Mannering was heckled all over the con- 
stituency by their conceited secretaries. Beatrice, with 
her keen sense of humour, enjoyed the fun far more 
than the sportsman, who took the business very seriously, 
and was unskilled in giving the vague promises, parry- 
ing interference, which in politics can be broken with- 
out incurring any appreciable degree of moral disap- 
proval. 

Spencer promised the Dawton branch of the “ Real 
Purity Society ” that he would “ consider seriously ” the 
necessity of promoting a bill to appoint a permanent 
music-hall censorship, whilst Mannering, on Carew’s 
advice, promised to bring the project under “ the im- 
mediate notice of the Prime Minister, whose strong 
feeling on this question of public morals must be well 
known to their excellent society.” Beatrice interviewed 
the delegates of the Anti-Tobacco (for women) Society 
for her husband, and discovered that “ she should re- 
joice if cigarette-smoking by females were made a mis- 
demeanour,” and promised to impress her views on her 
husband, who, although he had “ an open mind on this 
subject,” was unfortunately hampered by “an absurd 
dread of interfering with the liberties of an unenfran- 
chised sex.” 

When The Rational Sunday League (with Sabbath 
cricket on the village green) appealed to Spencer for 
his “ views,” his Protestantism revolted, but Mannering, 
as a sportsman, at once joined the league. “ I play 


54 


CORRUPTION. 


golf myself on Sunday,” he said, “ and don’t see why 
other fellows shouldn’t play cricket.” This sapient ob- 
servation impelled the leading local paper to refer to 
him as “ level-headed,” which, as his wdfe remarked, 
quoting from a libretto of Gilbert, “ is a term teeming 
with hidden meaning.” 

In revenge, Spencer obtained the support of the 
Sabbath Observance Society. 

As a member of an “ old evangelical family,” Spen- 
cer discovered that he could not “ conscientiously ” 
promise to vote for the Marriage Reform Bill of the 
Anti-Divorce Society, but at the same time he felt 
“ bound to confess that he perceived the strong moral 
arguments in favour of the proposed reforms.” 

The A. D. S., however, was dissatisfied, and offered 
Mannering their support (which was considerable 
amongst the Irish Catholic voters in the constituency), 
if he could see his way to “ go one better ” than his 
rival. Unluckily, his “religious scruples” were also an 
obstacle, so the members and supporters of the society 
decided, not without indignant protest, “ to take no 
further part in the electoral conflict.” 

The local branch of the Female Enfranchisement 
Society were unable to obtain a pledge from either can- 
didate, but Beatrice called on the honorary secretary 
and assured her privately that her husband was secretly 
in favour of woman suffrage, although he did not deem 
the present a convenient moment for renewing the agi- 
tation. 

With the Organised Universal Anti-Liquor League, 


CORRUPTION. 


65 


neitlier Spencer nor Mannering could do much oR their 
own bats. “What we want,” they said, imperiously, 
“ is a pledge to vote for Prohibition.” Spencer could 
not give it, partly because Prohibition was the last 
straw in the Greville programme, but chiefly because he 
owned a half-share in the “ Blue Moon,” a house of en- 
tertainment at Wapping, very popular with sailors, and 
lucrative to its owners. 

Mannering, on Carew’s advice, gave the Prohibition- 
ists a flat refusal, on the grounds that he “ strongly dis- 
approved of coercion even in temperance.” This was a 
critical point in the campaign. 

The indignant teetotallers threatened to vote against 
him to a man, until Mannering’s astute electioneering 
agent “ learnt on unimpeachable authority ” that their 
opponent had a share in “ one of the most disreputable 
riverside ‘ publics ’ in Wapping.” After this discovery 
Spencer lived for the remainder of his candidature in 
“purgatory.” The Prohibitionists “demanded an ex- 
planation,” which, since the unlucky candidate feared 
that strong incriminating evidence might be forthcom- 
ing, he declined to give. After a terrible quarter of an 
hour’s heckling in the corn exchange, against which, 
even the frenzied support of the Licensed Victuallers 
Protection League w^as no adequate barrier, he prac- 
tically confessed that he drew some slight income from 
“ the property in question.” 

“ May I ask, sir, if you actually invested your money 
in this abominable traffic?” shouted the Rev. Alfred 
Spunge, red with wrath. 


56 


CORRUPTIOX. 


“ You may ask me, sir,” retorted the exasperated 
candidate at last, “ but I shall consider it a d — d imper- 
tinent question.” 

Thus ended Spencer’s chance of the teetotal vote, on 
which he had been counting, since Mannering was 
openly “ on the side of drink,” as the temperance lec- 
turer told his hearers. 

The next evening, at a big meeting organised by the 
Y. M. C. A., the Rev. Alfred “ felt bound to confess that 
they were between the ‘ devil and the deep sea of in- 
iquity.’ Neither candidate,” he said, “ has clean hands. 
One belongs to a mischievous group drawing the sinews 
of war from this unholy traffic ” — (“ Meaning Muir,” 
shouted a “ reformed dypsomaniac liable to relapses ”) — 
“ the other stands convicted of amassing wealth from 
the demoralisation of unhappy seafaring men in the port 
of London ! Of the two candidates we had better trust 
the open enemy rather than the secret foe.” 

In desperation Spencer rushed into the arms of the 
Anti-Faddist Society, who were a noisy few, and at dag- 
gers drawn with the “ Real Purity ” people. 

Just before the election, Beatrice called on Mrs. Al- 
fred Spunge — once a pretty little dressmaker with a 
neat taste in highly decorated hats — who had won the 
young Methodist’s heart. On the following Sunday 
she “ sat under ” the Rev. Alfred, in Mrs. Alfred’s pew, 
and much gratified that worthy divine by the “ earnest- 
ness of her manner, and the purity of her gaze.” 

“ She’s a perfect lady,” said his wife, who had talked 
“ dress ” with Beatrice, “ and I hope you’ll do what you 


CORRUPTION. 


67 


can to get Mr. Mannering returned. She assures me 
he is an advocate of temperance privately, and that spir- 
its are never seen at his table.” Thanks to the butler 
and the sideboard this was true. 

So the Rev. Alfred, who was “ a power ” amongst 
the dissenters, gave it out that his vote would be re- 
corded for Mannering, and the flock followed their 
pastor. 

“ Bravo, Beattie,” shouted Mannering, when he 
learnt the value of her intervention from his agent, 
“ bravo ! ” But Carew, who saw him beaming over her 
with the affectionate pride of a proprietor in his eyes, 
swore in secret. 

Carew was a great platform speaker. He never as- 
sumed the air of a nursery governess addressing an un- 
ruly family of children when their mother is listening, 
and avoided by instinct the false notes which the dull- 
est audience resents. Patronage and condescension 
were absent from his orations. 

He was never more vulgar than necessary, under the 
erroneous impression an election audience is captivated 
by the arts of the music-hall costermonger. 

He only spoke once — on the day before the poll — 
and when he smelt victory in the air. 

An intoxicating drug lurks in the approving shouts 
of a big, stupid crowd when it is on the orator’s side. 
It was Carew’s favourite stimulant, but he never lost his 
head in the fumes. 

He had no difficulty in making Mannering’s oppo- 
nent ridiculous. 


58 


CORRUPTIOX. 


“ We have no right,” he said, “ to misrepresent our 
rival’s claims and motives. They are honourable 
enough, but completely stereotyped. But it is possible 
to conceive an age of more highly developed mechanical 
skill, when candidates of a similar kind will be manu- 
factured by the gross in Birmingham, and sent round 
the country on wheels, to grind out the current formu- 
las of the day.” 

Spencer’s father had amassed a fortune by the manu- 
facture of clock-work dolls. At this point in the 
speech, a man raised a brightly-robed mannikin above 
his head, and squeezed it in the region of the waist. 
“ Pap-pa — mam-ma ” squeaked the compromising toy, 
whilst the whole assembly roared like one man. This 
argument was regarded by the audience as the reductio 
ad absurdum of Spencer’s criticism. 

“ Our opponent derides us,” continued Carew, when 
his voice could be heard in the big corn exchange where 
the meeting was held, “ because we are in his opinion 
politicians without a policy, but we have a policy which 
is plain enough. So far as it can be identified with 
that of the present Ministry it has been on the side of 
Democracy. An ideal Government would probably be 
one on entirely scientific principles. At present we are 
a long way from that. Philosophers tell us that even 
our civilisation is experimental, as human schemes of 
government and society have ever been. We are occu- 
pied at the present moment in dealing with infinitely 
difficult questions connected with labour and capital, 
and it may, I think, be urged in our favour that the in- 


CORRUPTION. 


59 


Alienee our little group of Independent politicians has 
been enabled to exercise on the bill just passed into law 
will at least be popular in Dawton.” 

Then, with extreme dexterity and plausibility, Ca- 
rew demonstrated to the shipwrights and factory hands 
how much they would gain by the measure, and espe- 
cially by the popular clause inserted in the bill as they 
all knew by his intervention. This was the practical 
point in his speech. Then, passing into vaguer gener- 
alities, he discussed the probable effect of a modiAed 
form of Socialism on human affairs, moving nimbly 
from the handling of difAciilt facts to the treatment of 
political theories, among which he could amble in elo- 
quent safety. The dash of poetry and romance he 
threw in with art -was very telling. He had skimmed 
over the same ground often enough, but that evening 
Beatrice was watching him and he almost succeeded in 
believing in his own dreams. His speech was a com- 
plete success. The crowd shouted ; Mannering felt that 
the election was already won ; and Beatrice whispered, 
her face pale with excitement, “ How you lift things 
from the mud, Paul.” 


CHAPTER VIIL 

Mannering was returned for Dawton by a large 
majority. The Opposition papers spoke of the victory 
as the result of “ a campaign of abuse, of misrepresenta- 


60 


CORRUPTION. 


tion, of rhetoric and rhodomoutade.” Then the elec- 
tion agents compared notes in the columns of the 
Times^ and said as many disagreeable things as the edi- 
tor v/ould permit, till, finally, the dispute died a natural 
death with a pompous “ leader ” as the sole epitaph on 
its unnecessary existence. 

The Mannerings were delighted. The election had 
aroused great public attention, and their prominence 
pleased them. Mannering affected, in a perfectly in- 
offensive manner, the airs of a busy public man, and 
commenced to read Blue Books with an air of impor- 
tance that made his wife secretly smile. 

“ My agent tells me my majority chances weren’t 
worth ‘ a rap ’ without you, Carew,” he said. “ My wife 
and I will never forget what you have done for us.” 

Then he insisted on giving him a beautiful bronze 
statuette which had made a sculptor’s reputation at the 
last Salon. On the pedestal Beatrice caused the follow- 
ing legend to be inscribed : “ From Gerald and Beatrice 
to their friend Paul Carew as a token of gratitude, af- 
fection, and admiration.” 

“ I like it,” said Mannering, “ and I think you’ll 
like it too, because it’s rather like Beatrice. She wears 
her hair like that.” 

In the faint smile on the bronze lips, Carew read the 
irony of the gift. In moments of remorse, invariably 
also moments of danger, when the lamp-light streamed 
over the lightly-poised figure, it shone back on him 
ominously like a monument on the grave of the peace 
he had sacrificed. 


COHRUPTION. 


61 


The new year brought Carew the excitement of 
work. Parliament had but a year more to run ; the 
country was agitated by demands for land reform on 
one side, and for an extension of the powers of local 
government on the other. As a democratic speaker 
with a clear bias to Imperialism, Carew was wanted on 
many public platforms, and his influence was visibly 
growing. Rumours of his complete understanding 
with the Prime Minister were constantly appearing in 
“ the political notes ” of the papers. The hypothesis 
suited “political meteorologists,” who make forecasts 
which no one ever troubles to verify after the event. 
The ministerial organs desired to see the Carewites 
reabsorbed in the party, and dwelt on the idea with 
satisfaction. A man’s power of making his enemies 
and allies uncomfortable is often a fair measure of the 
respect they show him. No one is polite to a nuisance 
in politics unless it can drag votes into the parlia- 
mentary market. Carew beheld with gratified and 
contemptuous vanity this general readjustment of at- 
titudes. He was no longer a “political upstart,” “a 
parliamentary buccaneer,” “ an opportunist with an eye 
to plunder,” but a man who, “ unlike most Democrats, 
could still believe in the possibility of a National 
party in which minor divergencies of opinion might 
be merged.” 

“ Mr. Carew’s political eccentricities,” said the Royal 
Banner^ “ are underlaid by a substratum of patriotism 
that we can all respect.” 

These, and dozens of similar comments which the 


62 


CORRUPTION. 


Press-Cutting Agency sent him every morning, were in 
reply 'to the many variants of the platitude on which he 
relied for popularity. “ The public liked simple ideas,” 
he told himself, “and if you can give these different 
doublets they will end in converting them into the 
equivalent of a polic3\” 

This is the banner he waved at friend and foe. 

“ Our differences concerning questions of internal 
administration,” he said, “ ought not to prevent us from 
acting unanimously whenever real national interests 
are at stake. The security of the Empire must not be 
endangered by the caprices of accidental majorities.” 

But Carew’s powers of oratorical iridescence en- 
abled him to colour his platitude with many flattering 
shades. At one time, the security of the Empire meant 
the passing of the Prime Minister’s new bill for the 
Simplification of the Transfer of Land ; at another, “ the 
maintenance of an invincible navy,” or the necessity of 
“ a continuous foreign policy.” 

The Prime Minister’s Land Bill would be the prin- 
cipal item of the coming Queen’s Speech. Carew had 
advocated it warmly in the provinces, and one morning 
Greville requested him to call on him in Downing 
Street. 

“ I want all your Labour votes for my Land Bill,” 
he said. “ Can I have them ? ” 

Carew hesitated, then said — 

“ If I can get them.” 

“ You’re not sure of them, then ? ” 

“ Yo ; your bill isn’t socialistic enough for them.” 


CORRUPTION. 


63 


“ But they owe you something, Mr. Carew.” 

“ Yes, a good deal ; but all the same they will only 
half like your measure.” 

“ Well, make them vote for it. They mustn’t ex- 
pect all they want just yet. We rely on your support.” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ In that case I shall count on theirs too. The bill 
will be a boon to the landed interest generally, and it 
would be a piece of mischief to wreck it.” 

Then they talked over the clauses and the amount 
of opposition it was likely to meet with in the Lords. 

But when Carew was leaving, the Prime Minister 
stopped him. 

“ By the bye,” he said, “ I hear you are about to be 
married. You are right. Give hostages to fortune as 
soon as possible. The public will like you all the 
better. I congratulate you.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” said Carew, with an uneasy 
twinge, “ but this is the first I’ve heard of it.” 

“ Isn’t it true then ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Well ! well ! You must pardon an inquisitive old 
man. Dear m.e, I shall have to scold my young gossip.” 

Carew guessed that Mr. Greville referred to his 
nephew, Harry Greville, one of his private secretaries. 

“ Did he give you the lady’s name, sir ? ” 

“ To be sure he did. The daughter of your friend, 
Mr. Muir. IIow very embarrassing.” 

Then Carew went away wondering, but before he 

had. passed the Horse Guards he knew how the rumour, 
5 


COmiUPTION. 


which was natural enough, had spread. What he chose 
to consider his friendship for Miss Muir had served as 
an excellent blind for his secret understanding with 
Beatrice Mannering. His colleague’s daughter fed him 
on the subtlest of flatteries — that of an admiration un- 
consciously revealed. 

That evening an enterprising evening journal an- 
nounced that a complete understanding had been ar- 
rived at between the Prime Minister and Carew, and 
that the entire fusion of the Carewites with the Min- 
isterialists was confldently expected at the opening of 
Parliament. 

The placards of the evening newspapers vividly im- 
pressed upon Carew the hold he was rapidly acquiring 
on the public mind. In most careers that attract the 
public there comes a moment when the return re- 
funded on success is by compound interest. But with 
him prosperity suggested ruin. Might not the road to 
safety — the only road — be found in marriage? This 
thought occurred to him when he was away from 
Beatrice and in his cold-blooded moods, when facts 
were facts and not emotional incidents with a halo on, 
but she could dispel his thin scheme with a stroke of 
her wand. 

The infusion of an acid may change the whole char- 
acter of a substance. Admit jealousy and the generous 
sentiments are altered and degraded. Paul was afraid 
of the naked truth, but jealousy had now assumed a 
form he was ashamed to recognise. “ Can a woman,” he 
asked himself, “ love two men ? ” Vanity came to the 


CORRUPTION. 


65 


rescue and said, “ No ; not when you are one of them.” 
“ Beatrice,” he argued, wdien sickened by the apparent 
understanding between her and Mannering, “ resigns 
herself to circumstances. A woman must.” But he 
found little solace in his hypothesis, for she admitted 
she liked her husband. His next shift was an effort to 
believe that Mannering was after all only a big, good- 
natured brother to her, although all his senses mocked 
the feeble theory. 

Now that his mind was blockaded by the new 
rumour, the immense advantage offered by the marriage 
grew in magnitude. It would give him the wealth he 
needed, and protect him against the passionate reckless- 
ness of his temptation. Besides, it w’ould place Beatrice 
and himself on equal terms. 

But compunction forbade him giving this last 
thought a clear outline. Constance Muir’s grace and 
charm had often solaced him. She must not be made 
the subject of a brutal experiment. But then — for the 
eternal excuses in this conflict fell thick as leaves — 
were not all marriages experimental, and if he made 
her happy, as he could and would, where was the wrong 
outside the field of traditional sentiment, which he 
despised ? 


66 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Carew’s servant, Bates, had the inscrutable face of 
the well-trained valet. A generation or two of service 
and an equitable temperament are necessary to produce 
the type. Bates suited Carew, and Carew suited Bates. 
Carew found his servant a useful and well-oiled cog- 
wheel in the machinery of his life; and Bates, while 
disapproving of his master’s politics, which differed 
widely from the strong Tory views he had absorbed 
from his environment, was proud of his em.jffoyer’s 
growing fame. 

“ Don’t you make any mistake,” Bates used to say 
at his club, discussing politics with his friends on 
Sunday evening, when his master dispensed with his 
services, according to their bond — “ don’t you make 
any mistake, I’m not a Carewite. My principles are 
strict Tory, and I’ve lived almost invariably in high 
Tory families. All the same, I admire intellect wher- 
ever I see it. Carew’s a man. That’s what he is. 
He’s not quite the angel some of his friends think. 
He’s got his weaknesses an’ vices like the rest of us. 
Drink ? Oh, no, it ain’t drink. A soberer man don’t 
walk. Never you mind what it is. I’m the only man 
who knows, and I can keep a secret. But, 0 my ! 
if I did choose to talk, some of ’em would have to 
sit up. Quite like a play, eh? with a tip-top scan- 
dal. Carew means to get to the top of the tree, 
and I’m not the sort of man to put my little spoke 


CORRUPTION. 


67 


into his big wheel.” So the servant watched the 
master and enjoyed the comedy. As all efficient lack- 
eys should be, Bates was a student of human nature; 
“ No man,” he used to say, “ is quite so good as he 
looks in print.” 

At his club, which met in a public-house adjoining 
a mews in the fashionable neighbourhood of Down 
Street, he was somewhat of an authority, and occasion- 
ally gave some interesting information to “a young 
lady nurse ” of his acquaintance who contributed to a 
penny Society paper. 

He read Carew’s letters and explored with quiet 
cunning the suspicious half-lights of his master’s career. 
He sat like an ominous, black bird in a mist waiting 
for carrion, chuckling grimly over the laudatory lead- 
ing articles in the Comet. 

“ Carew’s no worse than the rest of us,” he used 
to say to himself impartially, as he looked back to his 
own career. But sometimes, as he flicked the dust 
from the bronze flgure, he grinned up at it and said, 
“ An’ how do you think it will all end, miss, eh ? ” 

If Carew had guessed what his man thought wdien- 
ever his eyes fell on the Mannerings’ gift he would have 
flung him on to the pavement in Piccadilly. 

On the morning following his interview with the 
Prime Minister when Carew was at breakfast, he, as 
usual, asked his man whether there was any news. 
Bates quietly produced a copy of the Universe^ and 
said, “ I think there is something here you would like 
to see, sir. The hall porter sent it up to me, sir,” said 


68 


CORRUPTION. 


Bates, apologetically, removing the covers of the dishes. 

The following was the paragraph : “ A marriage, we 
understand, has been arranged between that rising 
young statesman and distinguished orator, Mr. Paul 
Carew, and Miss Constance Muir, the charming daugh- 
ter of his friend and colleague, Mr. Stephen Muir. 
‘ None but the brave deserve the fair.’ ” 

“ All right,” snapped Carew abruptly, with a frown, 
wdien he had read it. 

“ Flustered him a bit ! ” reflected the servant as he 
withdrew, “ an’ no wonder. I s’pose there is something 
in it, but these newspaper chaps are uncommon hearty 
liars.” 

Then he methodically brushed his master’s great 
coat, immersed all the while in the problem before 
liim. There were, then, other actors in it besides those 
he suspected. 

The peremptory tingle of the electric bell sum- 
moned him to the front door. 

It was Mr. Muir with the Universe in his hand. 

“ The master’s at breakfast,” said Bates. 

“ Never mind,” said Muir, “ I want to see him at 
once.” 

He followed Bates into the dining-room, w’ho an- 
nounced him with more than his usual dignity. 

“You’ve seen it, then?” said Muir, indicating the 
paper on the table. 

“ Yes,” said Carew. 

In an embarrassed silence the two men looked at 
one another for a moment. 


CORRUPTION. 


69 


“ It must be a particularly unpleasant business for 
you,” said Carew at last, speaking slowly, as his 
thoughts shot round the narrowing circle, “ and will, 
I fear, annoy Miss Muir. I needn’t tell you the report 
is groundless, or that I should not speak to your daugh- 
ter without your sanction.” 

Muir was visibly upset. 

“ But what’s to be done ? What’s to be done ? ” he 
asked plaintively. 

Carew’s stern face frightened him a little. 

“ Has Miss Muir seen it ? ” 

“ Yes. A marked copy of the paper was sent her. 
By this time her friends will be sending her congratu- 
lations.” 

Then Carevy^ with an effort swung round his purpose 
on its stiff hinge. 

“ I will be frank with you. The paragraph, absurd 
as your daughter knows it to be, didn’t surprise me. 
I first heard of it yesterday from the Prime Minister. 
There is some sort of excuse for it. We have been 
closely connected in politics; Miss Muir and I have 
been warm friends, although I’m convinced no one was 
more astonished at the paragraph than your daughter. 
She is the one who deserves all the pity.” 

As he was speaking, that which the day before had 
been in the fluid state as an idea congealed into a 
purpose. Constance Muir’s pensive blue eyes with 
the affectionate lights in them aided in the simple 
process. 

The obscure whisper grew articulate, and said 


TO 


CORRUPTION. 


plainly, “ Make the stakes even. If Beatrice has Man- 
nering, you will have Constance.” 

“ But I think I ought to tell you,” he went on 
quietly, “ that the rumour only anticipates what I 
desire. Bor some time I thought of speaking to you, 
but the natural diffidence a man feels in these matters 
made me put it offi You are rich ; I’m poor. Society 
thinks me a political adventurer and a renegade from 
my class. I could hardly expect you to look on me as a 
son-in-law with the same eyes you regard me experi- 
mentally as a parliamentary colleague.” 

“ The only thing that will guide us in such a mat- 
ter,” replied Muir, identifying his wife with him in a 
nervous desire to add weight to his parental dicta^ 
“ must be our daughter’s feelings. From wdiat her 
mother has told me, I gather that she isn’t entirely in- 
different to you.” 

Carew felt himself on the other side of the stream. 

“ She likes me in a friendly sort of way, that is all,” 
he answered. “ But if you will let me speak to her I 
will ascertain her wushes as to this report. If she 
doesn’t care about me it must be emphatically denied. 
If, on the other hand, she has the same feeling for me 
that I have for her, I will try to be worthy of her re- 
gard. Do you agree to this ? ” 

“ Yes. It rests entirely with you and her,” said 
Muir feebly. 

“ Then the sooner it is settled the better for us all,” 
returned Carew. “ Can I see your daughter about 
four ? ” 


CORRUPTION. 


71 


“Yes. And now I’ll leave you to breakfast in 
peace.” 

Both men were glad to get the interview over. The 
transaction was a cold-blooded one, and the frost came 
from Carew. Moral deterioration, while in process, 
gives the patient no serious inconvenience. A few 
weeks before, on the autumn day when he said good- 
bye to Beatrice on the cliff at Portradock, Carew would 
have been ashamed to experiment on so gentle and 
tender a subject as Constance Muir, but when a man 
obeys the instinct of self-preservation, he little heeds, in 
his panic, on whom he tramples. 


CHAPTER X. 

Only the most sordid soul can enter a friendly and 
hospitable house on a purely selfish errand unaccom- 
panied by the shadow of reluctance. Carew felt as 
though his moral temperature were being lowered. The 
swift excuses flashed up in his brain readily enough, 
but could not warm him to the cheerful degree of self- 
complacency necessary to complete comfort. 

Constance Muir heard his step on the stairs, and 
when the servant announced him she was standing by 
the fire-place, where three great logs were crackling, 
with one foot resting on the fender. The hand she 
gave him shook nervously, and her pretty face was 
clouded with anxiety. 


72 


CORRUPTION. 


“ I have come to ask you to forgive me for being 
the unwilling instrument of your torture,” he said. “ I 
hope the stupid paragraph in the Universe has not an- 
noyed you.” 

“ There is nothing to forgive,” she said. “ It isn’t 
your fault that people write silly things in the papers.” 

The effort she made to smile was not successful. 

“ My poor little name,” she added, “ seemed to fill 
the wdiole page. It had no right there, and so shud- 
dered itself into a mist of big black M’s, and U’s, and 
I’s, and R’s.” 

“ I am delighted you can take a humorous view of 
the affair,” he replied, soothingly. “A poor poli- 
tician’s greatest consolation is to laugh at himself some- 
times, and there is really no reason why you should 
deny yourself the same innocent pleasure. You see. 
Miss Muir, they have put us both in the pillory, and 
the best way for you to blunt the edge of mortification 
— for I naturally feel none — is not to wince. But it 
must be distressing to you to find yourself bracketted 
with a man whom Society dislikes.” 

“ And fears,” she interrupted. 

“ Fears ? scarcely. It hides its terror cleverly, then. 
At the present moment all the fashionable people of 
your acquaintance are saying, ‘ Such a nice girl, too ; 
she deserved a better fate.’ That’s where my humilia- 
tion commences.” 

“ But I don’t care what people say,” she answered 
gently, “ and that’s the last thing they think, I’m sure, 
although it is kind and like yourself to take that flatter- 


CORRUPTION. 


Y3 

ing view of it in order to spare my feelings. But no 
one — not even the kindest, Mr. Carew — likes to be made 
ridiculous.” 

“ I may be wanting in proper pride,” he said, smil- 
ing into her troubled eyes, “ but I can’t see anything 
ridiculous in it. \Ye have been great friends ; you are 
the charming daughter of a distinguished man. You 
are the victim — the only victim — of this annoying blun- 
der. But what must we do to remedy it ? ” 

“ I can trust you to do what is best, Mr. Carew.” 

“ I fear you can’t. Miss Muir. You know the Prime 
Minister sent for me on AVednesday.” 

“ Yes ; it was in all the papers.” 

“ AYhat do you think he said ? ” 

“ Papa told me. He asked you to support his new 
Land Bill.” 

“Yes; but he asked me a question. Guess what it 
was.” 

“ I can’t. Perhaps I’m afraid to.” 

“ He asked me if it were true you were going to 
marry me. You see, even the Prime Minister is inter- 
ested in you. What do you suppose I said ? ” 

“ I don’t know. But you must have felt you hated 
me.” 

“ Hated you, you sweet English rose ! But, shall I 
tell you — Constance ? ” 

Her heart was pumping the blood through her blue 
veins in visible waves of lessening and deepening 
colour. 

“ Tell me,” she exclaimed, “ if it won’t hurt me.” 


74 


CORRUPTION. 


Then, as her aHectionate gaze wrapped itself round 
him, he said very gently and kindly, assured of his 
power over her, “ You dear child, don’t look anxious. 
What I said needn’t matter to you. I told him it 
wasn’t true, but that I wished it were. I want to make 
it true now, if I can. Shall I give an emphatic denial 
to a statement which, however premature in point of 
time, represents my most ardent desire? Or do you 
care enough about me to marry me — to help me to try 
to keep good like yourself ? ” 

The light from the blazing logs lit up her sweet 
face. 

“ But it doesn’t seem possible that you can care for 
me. If you did, I must have discovered it long ago. 
Are you sure — for you are very good ! — that you are not 
asking me out of pity?” 

Her swimming eyes and virginal grace touched 
him deeply. She had only pure gold to bring to the 
bargain. 

“ I do love you, Constance,” he said. “ The frosts 
and snows of politics on the surface haven’t reached my 
heart.” 

“ Then you really love me — a bread-and-butter miss, 
as my brother used to call me — you, who are a states- 
man and a great man. It doesn’t seem possible ! Yet 
you wouldn’t say so if it were not true. And I have 
loved you for two years ! ” 

“ I love you,” he repeated. “ Believe it.” 

And then, with a faint cry of delight, she sank into 
his arms. 


COHRUPTION. 


75 


“ If you only knew how happy you have made me.” 

At that moment he was near loving her. The lie 
was not a great onej and seemed to dwindle, the hypoc- 
risy to shift and change to something like candour, 
and Circe s garden to become a dimly-remembered 
dream. Besides, he was not sure then that other pas- 
sion was love. 

“ But do you think I can make you happy, Con- 
stance ? ” he asked. 

“You are the only man who can. I’m only cr3dng 
because I’m so glad.” 

“ I ivill try to make you happy,” he said emphat- 
ically. 

And then they sat by the fire, and she opened her 
heart to him, and he entered it without remorse. 

She would never know — it would break her heart. 
But, as he measured the engagement from the profit- 
and-loss point of view, his dowry slirank dismally. She 
lavished all her love, future, and life on the contract; 
he in return gave her the tepid affection that a passion 
had left. Men, he told himself, married on less — espe- 
cially with the daughters of the exceeding rich ! But 
he was half ashamed at one thought, which obtruded 
itself like a vulgar upstart among all the gentler images 
crowding in his mind. “ What,” asked the voice, “ will 
be her dowry ? ” 

“ Sweet English rose, pink and white blossom,” he 
repeated in her ear to drive it away. 

Then, whilst she talked of his future career, he won- 
dered if she could build him a refuge against himself. 


76 


CORRUPTION. 


But, all the while, the ugly truth, that grinned at him 
through the veil he flung over it, obstinately wdiispered, 
“ This is the antiseptic treatment.” 


CHAPTER XL 

Cahew dined at home that evening. He had suc- 
ceeded in his object, but scarcely a vestige of satisfac- 
tion crowned the result. He was like a general who 
has shifted his field of battle on to unfamiliar ground, 
and has no map. The bronze figure above the 
mockery of its legend watched him with its derisive 
smile. 

The electric bell aroused him from his reflections. 
He had ordered Bates to say he was at home to no one, 
for he was in no mood for receiving congratulations. 
But his servant entered. 

“ I told you I wasn’t at home.” 

“ Yes, sir,” said the imperturbable Bates, “ but it’s a 
lady, and she says she will wait till your return. She is 
in the drawing-room.” 

“ Show her in then.” 

He stood up and threw away his half-smoked cigar. 
Then Bates opened the door quietly and closed it 
silently, and Beatrice, wrapped in a rich cloak, and 
with a red rose shining in her beautiful hair, moved 
into the circle of light, her chin rising wistfully above 
the soft fur encircling her throat. There was some- 


CORRUPTION. 77 

tiling remotely melodramatic in her coming, and he 
clutched at the idea. 

“You come like the ill-used heroine in a French' 
novel,” he said, “ but even the paragraph in the 
Universe isn’t excuse enough for so great an indis- 
cretion.” 

Then he removed her cloak from her bare shoulders 
and placed it — moving slowly to gain time — across a 
chair. It seemed to him that her eyes and white skin 
shone in him through a haze of restrained recklessness, 
but when she spoke the gentleness of her voice dis- 
pelled the idea. 

“ I see, Paul, that you know why I have come. But, 
of course, it isn’t true ? ” 

“It wasn’t true this morning,” he answered dog- 
gedly, “ but it’s true now.” 

“ 0 Paul ! ” she said piteously, “ and without telling 
me.” 

“ If I had, I should never have done it, and I did it 
for the best.” 

“ For whose best ? ” 

“ For yours and mine — not hers.” 

“ Don’t you love her, then ? ” 

“ Yo. I like her. I wish I did love her.” 

“ But how can it help us?” 

“ By saving us from ourselves.” 

“But can we be? Is it not too late? Is it worth 
while trying ? ” 

“ That depends on our temptations. It seems use- 
less to-night, whilst you stand there, bewildering my 


78 


CORRUPTION. 


reason with your beauty. To-morrow, when I count the 
risks, I shall think differently.” 

“ You feel like a man.” 

“ Y’ou acted like a woman at Portradock.” 

“ Only for your sake and perhaps a little for Ger- 
ald’s.” 

“ You might leave him out.” 

“ One must think of others — a little.” 

“ But have we ever, Beatrice?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. This has altered everything. 
I thought you belonged to me, and that I was wronging 
no other woman. Now I am beginning to see it was 
merely a convenient theory to appease my vanity and 
excuse my sin. I wanted a little code all to myself. 
It isn’t as though I were a heartless woman ; I hate 
paining other people, but hate still more making myself 
unhappy. So right and wrong get mixed like colours 
do. There are colour-blind people, you know. Per- 
haps I’m a mole in the moral world. Your voice falls 
into my dreams, and stills the remorse I ought to feel. 
Do you believe a woman has a rudimentary conscience, 
Paul, undeveloped, like the Dancing Faun before he 
unlearned to dance ? ” 

Then she sank on the sofa holding his hands in her 
soft palms. He could find no power to withstand her 
plaintive witchery. Instead of the jealous storm he 
had anticipated, he beheld a touching acquiescence in 
the inevitable. 

“ I couldn’t expect you never to marry, just for my 
sake,” she said at last, after a long pause, her red lips 


CORRUPTION. 79 

close to his ear, “ although I was vain enough to think 
it possible.” 

Then he made his last effort to recover his freedom, 
and pay the price. 

“You remember what I asked you to do at Port- 
radock ? ” 

“ Yes, your very words. We were in the sunshine 
on the cliffs — I fly there in my dreams now — ‘ Write 
to Gerald,’ you said, ‘ tell him everything, and come 
abroad.’ ” 

“ Do it to-night.” 

“Yo; it’s harder now than ever. You remember 
what I answered.” 

“ You were afraid to pay the price.” 

“ Yes. I wanted you and your crown. I want it 
still. I can’t start the earthquake, Paul. I would 
rather take laudanum and sleep for ever. If we pulled 
everything down about us we should only be miserable, 
and, what is worse, ridiculous in the ruins. But tell 
me all about your engagement. Never mind my feel- 
ings. If you must marry some one, I would rather you 
married Constance Muir than anyone I know.” 

And he told her. 

“But you are fond of her,” she said resentfully, 
“ the immaculate little pink-and- white saint. But you 
can never love her like you love me.” 

“ I never loved any one but you, and never shall. I 
want her fortune to help me, I hate being poor. Also 
— the feeling is hard to put in words — I want her as a 

revenge against Mannering.” 

6 


80 


COHRUPTION. 


“ Poor Gerald, poor Miss Muir ! ” she said, almost in 
a whisper. “ So now we meet on equal terms. Isn’t 
there something rather inhuman, or rather non-human, 
in the arrangement ? ” 

Then, this time like a vicious cry of alarm, the jar 
of the electric bell, breaking the silence of his cham- 
bers, drove them apart, the same dread in the heart of 
both. 

Might it not be Mannering, eager to congratulate 
him? 

She looked at him with a terrified face. 

“ Courage ! ” he said. “ Mannering will suspect 
nothing. Besides he shall not come in.” 

The nervous brutality of the phrase struck them 
simultaneously, and they saw each other through the 
sordid mask of their guilt. 

Then he hurried out of the room, closing the door 
behind him. Bates was moving quietly towards the 
door. 

“ See that lady out five minutes after I have gone,” 
said Carew. “I will open the door.” 

Then he put on his hat and flung his coat on his 
arm, and turned the handle. 

It was Mannering. 

“ Oh, clad in impudence as with a garment,” said a 
clear boy’s voice, construing Greek, far away in his 
memory. 

“ Why, Mannering,” he exclaimed, loud enough for 
his wife to hear, “ I’m delighted to see you. I was just 
off to the club. A strange desire for oysters and cham- 


CORRUPTION. 


81 


pagne has seized me. I was too excited to eat any din- 
ner. Come, too. This is a festival with me. I can 
see you know why. Never mind the lift.” 

He seized his arm, like a man in boisterous 
spirits, and hurried him down the wide stone stair- 
case. 

“ Yes. I’ve heard the news,” said Mannering, in 
his jolly sportsman’s voice, “ and wanted to be the first 
to congratulate you. I would have brought Beatrice 
too, but she’s off to the play, or somewhere. She’s an 
erratic bird. But you kept it close ! The news is good 
enough to wake her up for.” 

“ Then it will be late,” said Carew, “ for I mean you 
to be the first to drink my health.” 

Then he hailed a hansom, and they drove to Pall 
Mall. 

At the club Carew regaled him at a horrible feast. 
Whisky and seltzer water and great cigars, following 
the oysters and champagne, took them late into the 
night. 

Mannering enjoyed himself like a boy, but at last 
said he must go. 

“ Don’t wake Mrs. Mannering up,” said Carew, as 
they separated at the corner of St. James’ Street, “ or 
she will look on me as a betrayer of youth.” 

“ It has been rather like an undergraduate’s de- 
bauch,” said Mannering, laughing carelessly. “ But 
good-night, and my best wishes. If ever a man de- 
served a good wife, you’re the man, and, by George ! 
you will have one.” 


82 


CORRUPTION. 


A few minutes later, the hand of Destiny, in the 
shape of Bates, opened the door to Carew. 

“ I put the lady into a four-wheeled cab, sir, accord- 
ing to instructions.” 

“ All right. Bates, good-night ! ” 

“ Good-night, sir.” 


CHAPTER XII. 

Now she was engaged to Carew happiness had made 
Constance Muir prettier than ever. He was her ideal. 
The romance and beauty of her life now seemed com- 
plete. Whenever his wit and eloquence deigned to lift 
her from the earth, she flew oil with him to Fairyland. 
There were moments when the very extent of her joy 
dazzled her, conscious as she was of the delicate balance 
on which it was suspended. “ No one has everything 
always,” whispered the ghostly voices beside her dark 
pillow. 

The radiance of her life, she imagined, resembled 
that of a perfect summer day, that a stronger breeze or 
an envious wandering cloud might mar or dim. She 
wondered how a man who filled so great a place in the 
wide circle of the world without could take so gracious 
and gentle a place in the narrow zone of her own exist- 
ence. Born amid great wealth, in an existence that ran 
on the smoothest of wheels, the slightest jolt was for her 
a shock. In all her mental horizons, narrow but charm- 


CORRUPTION. 


83 


ing, in the past, she beheld only one small spot with a 
tragic hue — tears in a boy’s eyes, that was all. Con- 
stance had only had one other lover, a youth of twenty- 
one, in her brother’s regiment, and in the delight of his 
first red-coat. 

Once she was sitting at home alone in the drawing- 
room, when Frank Eliot, who had had the run of the 
house ever since she could remember, was announced. 

“ I thought you were at Aldershot, Frank,” she said, 
as they shook hands. 

“ So I was three hours ago,” he answered, “ but I’ve 
come to see you.” 

Then, as she looked at him, she thought his eyes 
bore an odd expression. “ I never told anybody I was 
coming,” he said, “and must be back in camp to- 
night.” 

“ How is Freddie ? ” 

Frederick was her brother. 

“He’s all right,” said her visitor, “but even he 
doesn’t know what I’m here for, nobody does, and I’m 
afraid to tell you.” 

Then suddenly it occurred to her that it might be 
something to do wdth money, for Freddie frequently was 
involved in scrapes from which her father’s cheque-book 
alone could rescue him. 

“ Then hadn’t you better consult papa?” she sug- 
gested. 

“ No,” he said, “ you first, please. But what a funk 
I am — not fit to be a soldier ! ” 

“ It isn’t money then,” she said, growing curious. 


84 


CORRUPTION. 


“ No, it isn’t money,” he replied. “ It’s, it’s — love ! ” 
he blurted out. 

Then the blushes left his face very pale. 

“ It’s you, Connie,” he went on. “ I couldn’t keep 
away. It has been coming on me! Now it has got 
hold of me, and at last it drove me here to tell you.” 

Then he tried to hold her hand, but she rose from 
her seat. 

“ I’m sorry, Frank, very sorry. But you mustn’t tell 
me that. You must forget all about me.” 

“But why? Can’t you care for me a little bit? 
Tell me. Do you like another fellow, then ? ” 

“ Yes,” she said, faltering. 

“ 0 my God ! my God ! ” said the poor lad, “ what 
shall I do ? ” 

Then the tears gathered in his eyes. 

“ You’ve no idea how I love you, Connie. I wish 
I’d never been born. The best thing for me would be 
a jolly good war where I could get shot ! But who 
is it?” 

“ I can’t tell you, Frank ; don’t ask me.” 

Then she began to cry too, so they cried together 
like children. 

“ Do me a favour, Connie, dear,” he gasped, after a 
lachrymose interval. “Just let me give you one kiss. 
I’ll never ask you again. Just one — only a little one 1 
I’m a brute to ask you, but I’ve known you so long, and 
am such a wretched worm ! ” 

She thought of Carew and hesitated, but finally ex- 
tended her cheek to him, but he, poor youth, kissed her 


CORRUPTION. 


85 


on her lip3 with all his soul, and then hurried to the 
door with misery on his face. 

There he stopped a moment, and asked : “ Are you 
going to marry this man, Connie ? ” 

“ No — never.” 

This was the one little ray of hope that the lad took 
hack to Aldershot with him. 

But a few days later in the same room she was weep- 
ing with joy in Carew’s arms, and now that their mar- 
riage was fixed for the Easter recess, the love episode 
with Frank dwindled to a shadowy recollection. 

Meanwhile Carew was finding in the excitement of 
politics an anodyne for his misgivings. The Prime 
Minister’s Land Bill, which was consuming almost the 
entire time of the House, was strongly opposed by the 
extremists on both sides. The Socialists resisted the 
measure because they considered it likely to benefit the 
owners of property by rendering land a possession more 
readily negotiable, whilst the Tories dreaded the changes 
threatened to the Law of Entail. But with the tenant 
farmers and the owners of encumbered estates the bill 
was popular, and moderate men of most shades of 
opinion were prepared to welcome without enthusiasm 
a change which promised to simplify the whole system 
of English land tenure. The big public, as usual, were 
not stirred from their lethargy by the prospect of legis- 
lation too intricate for average comprehension, but they 
regarded with mild sporting interest the possible coali- 
tion between the remote political wings. 

It was Carew’s object to prevent Socialism and Tory- 


86 


CORRUPTION. 


ism finding a spasmodic alliance in the division lists, 
and he threw himself into the controversy with extreme 
ardour. His speech in favour of the bill did more to 
make it acceptable to the House and intelligible to the 
country than the involved explanation given by Greville 
when introducing it. U nder the light of Carew’s lucid 
eloquence the agrarian scheme of reform seemed clear 
and simple. It was owing not a little to his champion- 
ship that the majority for the second reading was so 
large. Carew had his reward. His temperate and 
rational views, his gift of knowing Avhat the country 
would accept from its rulers without wincing, his 
sense of humour, which balanced his sense of propor- 
tion, caused him to be regarded by all parties as a man 
whose place in Greville’s next Government w^as assured. 

Muir mightily rejoiced in the possession of his fu- 
ture son-in-law. Constance Muir read the papers with 
the colour shifting in her expressive face. The rest 
of her energies she devoted to the home she was pre- 
paring for “ her darling Paul.” Her father proposed to 
settle a fortune on her, and she w^as determined her 
husband’s life should be a triumphant procession. 
Decorators, sumptuous artists of luxury from Paris 
and Vienna, w^ere busy in the charming red brick 
house which looked above its own evergreens on to 
the trees of the Park and the gilt crest of the Albert 
Memorial. All the girl’s sense of beauty and comfort 
were now focussed on “ Paul’s library.” The love in 
her heart was blossoming into hangings, furniture, and 
delicately- tinted ceilings. 


CORRUPTION. 


87 


And Carew? Well, he was learning to accept it all 
as a matter of course — as his due. He was alwa3^s 
tender and grateful to her, allowing himself to he 
petted and caressed with the picturesqueness natural 
to him in all things. Yet the increasing brilliancy of 
his career brought him only half its due measure of 
satisfaction. As the date fixed for his w^edding ap- 
proached, he was gradually learning that the marriage 
which he had hoped was destined to lift him above 
the waves of disaster that splashed at his feet could 
never be a complete refuge from wreck, ruin, and 
dishonour, but rather must make his fate more abject 
and final. 

His feet led him into Circe’s garden oftener than 
ever, in spite of a will to resist, that grew weaker as 
he yielded. Beatrice’s power was now exerted over 
him with a potency bred of secret jealousy. She 
brandished the veil of sham cousinship more daringly 
than ever, and there were times when her recklessness 
positively terrified him. He beheld with painful mis- 
givings the growing influence that she was beginniug 
to exert over Constance Muir. The association of 
the two young women had sometimes a horrible fas- 
cination for him. It seemed like the commence- 
ment of some grim Italian story, and needed the 
Venice of the Doges, not the London of to-day, for 
the background. He almost shuddered when the opin- 
ions of Beatrice Mannering reached him in the voice of 
Constance Muir. Even in the decoration of the new 
house, he could see her delicate taste, with the subtle 


88 


CORRUPTION. 


suggestions of orientalism that it unconsciously sym- 
bolised. Her feeling for colour and line delighted 
Constance Muir, who was perpetually appealing to her 
friend’s riper judgment. 

One day Carew turned to his half-forgotten Greek 
and took down the Medea of Euripides from amongst 
the group of old college books. lie read the tragedy 
all through, finding in it terrible warnings but no 
comfort. 

“ Their friendship is too horrible ! ” he said to him- 
self. 

But why could not Beatrice see it? 

At last he expostulated. 

One sunny afternoon in March, on Sunday, whilst 
he w^as walking across the Park with Constance, they 
met the Mannerings. They all stopped. The Sunday 
crowd moved by ; several voices said, within the hear- 
ing of the group, “ That’s Carew.” The homage 
pleased Miss Muir. 

“ They will ask him to make a speech if we don’t 
move on,” said Beatrice laughing. 

“ Do come back to Palace Gardens and have tea,” 
said the girl, colouring slightly, as she almost always did 
at any reference to Carew’s popularity. 

So they took a westward path, Constance and Man- 
nering leading, Carew and Beatrice following, four 
types of English vigour and beauty. Overhead the 
thrushes sang joyfully in the leafless limes. 

“ Ah, Paul ! The spring, the spring ! ” exclaimed 
Beatrice ; “ I can feel it in my veins, like the trees 


CORRUPTION. 


89 


and the birds. But it doesn’t riot over the woods 
here in London like it used to in the dear west 
country when we were young. Since last spring 
something is dead here.” She laid her hand on her 
breast. 

“ What ? ” he asked. 

“ Guess.” 

“ Conscience ? ” 

“ Oh, a tedious thing ! The little voice of self-con- 
viction which tells us the truth in the dark. Shelley’s 
conception of Cenci is true. Several years of deception 
is teaching me a new philosophy of life. You are a 
very clever man, Paul, and will understand me when I 
tell you I can’t afford to yield what I want most to 
little saints like Constance Muir. Look at them ! I 
can see Gerald is telling her about the horse we saw at 
Tattersall’s this morning, and which he means to buy. 
He is a wonderful man ! He has bought horses ever 
since he came of age, and every fresh transaction has 
the brand of novelty for him. Such are the rewards of 
innocence. We went to see the Universities play foot- 
ball the other day. He nearly wept because Cambridge 
was beaten. I believe if I disappeared, not softly and 
silently and becomingly, but with a noisome crash, into 
social perdition, that the sportsman within him would 
prop him up comfortably after the first shock, and he 
would ride away or shoot away all his sorrow. There is 
more real comfort in sport than religion. Even a sin- 
cere devotion to whist will help to mend a broken heart. 
But what is vexing you? Not my little cynical canter? 


90 


CORRUPTION. 


But we can’t afford to leave all tlie humour to the seri- 
ous people.” 

Then he told her bluntly — 

“ I think your intimacy with Constance Muir hor- 
rible.” 

She evaded the point-blank thrust. 

“ Don’t quarrel with me, Paul, we have never quar- 
relled. Both of us sold our souls for the same price. 
We must taste the whole of it, like the heroes of old, 
till outraged Justice claims her own.” 

“ But can’t you see how unnatural it is?” 

“ It isn’t more unnatural than your alliance with 
Gerald. I’m natural enough to suffer from the most 
human of sentiments — jealousy. If I didn’t see you 
together, I couldn’t ‘sleep o’ nights.’ When I can’t 
sleep, I look a hag, and the crows dance all over my 
face. Perhaps you are afraid I shall demoralise your 
sweet saint.” 

“ Don’t sneer, Beatrice.” 

“I’m desperately in earnest. When she looks at 
you with her pretty soft eyes, I feel — but I won’t tell 
you what I feel — you must picture it. But don’t be 
afraid, I won’t hurt your dove, I know all the best 
of you belongs to me, whatever happens. The Muir 
money-bags must give my Paul wings for a higher 
flight. Forgive me ! the humorous side of things will 
obtrude themselves. Because, like Edmund in King 
Lear^ you are much beloved, you mustn’t imagine I am 
a Goneril or a Regan. After all, am I not your pupil, 
Paul?” 


CORRUPTION. 


91 


Then he was silent, for he knew she was. 

“ No one is unhappy for being kept in the dark,” 
she went on, after a moment’s pause. “ Look at Ger- 
ald ! He is the most contented of men. Your wife 
shall be as happy as my husband. You and I will 
march along our common path wherever it leads, bound 
with the same convict’s chain. Constance Muir shall 
never break it. Let everything be as it has been, and 
remember, we are the children of our time.” 

“ I wish we were children again, Beatrice,” he said. 

“ So do I — sometimes.” Then, quoting from Brown- 
ing’s After ^ but altering the w^ords to her mood of de- 
fiance, she added : 

“ Ha ! what avails death to erase 
Our offence, our disgrace % 

I would we were ‘ good ’ as of old 
In the field, by the fold.” 

But, the others having stopped for them, and the 
crowded Row being past, they walked four abreast on 
the fresh green of the grass, and talked of Carew’s last 
speech, of the progress of the decorators in the new 
house, and of the points of Mannering’s hunter. 

Carew felt his own impotence. Beatrice had not 
yielded a foot ; he knew she intended to watch him and 
Constance Muir, like a beautiful and jealous sentry. 


92 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER XIIL 

A FEW days before the Easter recess and his mar- 
riage, Carew’s parliamentary friends gave him a dinner, 
and presented him with some magnificent silver plate. 
Mannering, now in the full enjoyment of a seat in the 
House, under Carew’s wing, was the chief mover in 
honouring his friend. He subscribed fifty guineas, and 
acted as secretary, his zeal inducing Cabinet Ministers 
“ to send their little cheques.” 

The dinner was given at the Ameinon Club — one of 
those institutions where politicians of all shades gather, 
under an atmosphere of common “ smartness.” 

Society was interested in the approaching wedding. 
The ladies’ newspapers sent representatives to interview 
the decorators in the house now rapidly approaching 
completion. Full-page photo-engravings of Carew’s 
study, and the famous white and pink drawing-room, 
dazzled the eyes of the young women whose house dec- 
orations were restricted to art muslins and the genius 
of the local upholsterer. The portraits of the bride and 
bridegroom could scarcely have been published more 
often had they been obscure princelings. 

The fountains of widely-opened social gush flowed 
over them in a full stream. There was something un- 
usually attractive in the wedding. A distinguished 
public man, handsome, brilliant, and young, does not 
marry the beautiful daughter of a millionaire every 
day. Such incidents appeal strongly to the flaccid and 


CORRUPTION. 


93 


bourgeois imagination. No press pump was necessary 
to work up enthusiasm here. A “ none but the brave 
deserve the fair ” sentiment hung over the match. 
Transatlantic reporters pestered Carew at his club ; 
a female interviewer from New York captured Con- 
stance Muir, and “ cabled ” an account of her trousseau 
to a syndicate of American papers. Carew, looking up 
through the dusts of rumour, gossip, and flattery gath- 
ering above his head, scarcely saw the light of reality 
for the thickening layers. But youth and romance, 
love and trust, changed the dust for Constance Muir 
into a beautiful golden haze of happiness. 

Beatrice ran a thread of irony through the pro- 
ceedings. 

O 

“ Gerald is going to propose your health at the 
Amciuon dinner,” said Beatrice. “ He is generally seen 
to greater advantage as a listener, but he means well. 
But you have become so used to flattery that even he 
can’t make you feel ridiculous.” 

“ We shall be whipped with worse satire than that 
before we have done,” he said gloomily. 

“Are you afraid, then, Paul?” 

“ No. It all seems to have been mapped out for the 
amusement of invisible spectators. Destiny acts as the 
call boy. I am growing used to my part.” 

But generally, when they met, by a tacit agreement, 
they ignored the mixed texture of duplicity and igno- 
miny now worked in with every incident of their lives. 
Fatalism, the excuse and comfort of evil-doers since 
man became a thinking animal, blunted the edge of 


CORRUPTION. 


94 

remorse. They turned the artillery of their agnosticism 
from revealed religion and trained all their guns on to 
the moral law. 

So, when the day of the Ameinon dinner came, 
and Mannering, who had been coached by his new par- 
liamentary friends, extolled Carew’s virtues, it seemed 
to the politician only the due reward of his work and 
talents. 

“ The duty of speaking here,” said Mannering, 
smiling, “has devolved on me, partly because, through 
my wife, I am of the ‘ clan of Carew ’ ” — he believed in 
the shadowy kinship, and was proud of it — “ partly be- 
cause I am in point of time the youngest follower in 
the House of the distinguished member for the Beauvis 
division of Westshire. The word Statesman is chucked 
about a bit indiscriminately just now. A local paper in 
my own county said I was one the other day, but if 
Paul Carew isn’t I should like to know who is?” (A 
loud “Hear! hear!” from Muir.) “But I was told I 
wasn t to talk politics, and that several men are dining’’ 

o 

with us to-night on the understanding this is a purely 
friendly business. J ust let us see where we stand. Mr. 
Carew is about to marry one of the most charming girls 
in England. All that is best and worthiest in society is 
wishing them joy. Even politicians have dropped their 
differences to-night to— what shall I call it ?— wave the 
orange blossoms over them a bit, and to beg Mr. Carew 
and his biide to accept a little piece of plate as a mark 
of the esteem and affection of many of us, and of the 
admiration of all. I don t think I need say anything 


CORRUPTION. 


95 


else, in fact, I don’t tliink I can, for I’m nearly 
stumped, so it only remains for me to ask you to drink 
the health of Mr. Paul Oarew and the lady who, in a 
few days, will commence to share the brilliant future 
that his splendid talents and manly qualities have 
mapped out for him.” 

So the man who knew he ought to be on a stool of 
repentance sat with dignity on a throne of honour, and 
thanked his friends with the tact of studied modesty 
and the eloquence of a trained debater. 

When the speeches were finished, he walked home 
with Mannering to tell Beatrice and Constance Muir 
— who was dining there — “ how the business had gone 
ofi.” 

“What sort of speech did Gerald make?” asked 
Beatrice laughing. “ I know you have taught him how 
to vote, but what of his oratory ? ” 

Carew smiled quietly and said : “ He was charming, 
frank, and fiattering. He made me feel like a new Pitt, 
and forget I was merely a politician.” 

“ How good you are to him, Mr. Mannering ! ” ex- 
claimed Constance Muir, kindling ; “ both of you are 
good ! ” 

“ Hot a bit of it. Miss Muir. I meant every word 
I said,” Mannering answered. “Unluckily I forgot the 
speech I had learned, and had to make up another 
one as I went along. One of the Irish fellows wrote it 
out for me. There was a splendid paragraph about you. 
I’m ashamed to say I very nearly left you out.” 

“ He didn’t, Connie,” interposed Carew. “ He said 
7 


96 


CORKUPTION. 


delightful tilings about you too. I’m glad there were 
no reporters there to chronicle them, or you would 
blush to learn you are the most beautiful and charming 
girl in England.” 

“ I wish one of you could have dragged me into 
your speeches,” said Beatrice. “ I hate being left out 
in the cold.” 

“ You had some reflected glory out of the west coun- 
try kinship,” said her husband. 

“We are all cousins in Westshire,” explained Carew, 
quickly. 

“ It is the Keltic strain that makes us so clever,” 
added Beatrice. “ Can’t j^ou see it in both of us, 
Connie ? ” 

Miss Muir laughed and shook her head. 

“ I always thought the pure Kelts were little, plain, 
black people.” 

“ Only in the books of ignorant Saxon historians,” 
said Beatrice. “ There are moments when I feel like 
Boadicea, bleeding from the Eoman rods.” 

“ I have noticed that both you and Paul have an 
odd, and, I think, a very pretty way of sounding the u 
— is that Keltic ? ” 

“ No, rustic,” said Carew. 

“We will give you a performance in dialect some 
day,” said Beatrice ; “ it is too late to-night, and I have 
a proposal to make.” 

She turned to Carew. 

“ Gerald and I are going down to Elcourt on Friday, 
and shall stay till Monday. I want you and Connie 


CORRUPTION. 97 

to come too. It will be your last visit before you are 
married. Connie will come, if you can ? ” 

He read “ come ” in her eyes. 

“ I should like it. The Land Bill’s finished for the 
present session, and there is nothing to keep me.” 

“ Then that is arranged,” said Beatrice. “ The 
woods all yellow wdth primroses are just the place for 
happy lovers.” 

But the footman announced Miss Muir’s carriage, 
and she left the room for her mantle, under the care 
of Beatrice’s maid. Mannering went to his smoking- 
room for his cigar case, and the two were alone. 

“ What do you want us there for ? ” Carew asked. 

I want you for an hour or two all to myself before 
sharing you with another woman. There ! that is the 
reason — ugly, vulgar, vicious, and undraped ! ” 

She spoke almost hysterically, and then she kissed 
him swiftly and with her soul. 

The moment after, Mannering returned with the 
cigars. 

“No, I won’t smoke yet, thank you,” said Carew, 
his pulses still quivering from the furtive kiss. 

“ What shall we do with that huge armoury of plate 
you gave us ? ” he added quietly. 

“ You’ll find it useful when you are Prime Minister, 
and Gog and Magog from the city come to dine vdth 
you,” said Mannering laughing. 

“ It will keep the butler busy,” said Carew, averting 
his eyes, whilst the two women kissed one another. 

“ How delightful Beatrice Mannering is,” said Con- 


98 


CORRUPTION. 


stance Muir, whilst they were driving home. “ I think 
she is the most fascinating woman I ever knew, and her 
taste is exquisite. She has been singing Rubinstein’s 
songs to me delightfully — ‘ Why so coy beloved child,’ 
and the rest of them — only she sings them in German. 
I wonder how it is, Paul, you never fell in love with 
her before she met Mr. Mannering.” 

She required no answer for she held his hand affec- 
tionately clasped in her own, absorbed in silent delight 
at the possession of her “ noble lover.” 

The footman, opening the carriage door before the 
great house, roused her from a happy dream. 

“ Home already ! ” she said with a sigh. 

“ Yes — home,” said Carew. 

The tall door opened, and the luxury of the hall 
flashed into the spring night. 

“ Come in, Paul ? ” she said. 

“ NTo ; it is too late. I will walk home. The night 
air is so soft. Good-night, thank you for being good 
to me, and try to be always.” 

“ You spoil me,” she answered. “ I can’t be good to 
you for I love you with all my heart ! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Immediately after Beatrice Mannering’s visit, 
Carew wondered whether his valet knew more of his 
affairs than was perfectly safe. More than once Bates 


CORRUPTION. 


99 


had appeared before his master with somewhat of a 
glazed eye and a suspicion of alcoholic impediment in 
his speech, but the evidence of his excess had never 
gone beyond the limits that charity permits to indispo- 
sition of body or perturbation of mind. 

One evening, Carew had to ring his front door-bell 
thrice before the man answered. 

“ What do you mean by keeping me standing here ! ” 
he said savagely, when Bates, with a somewhat crumpled 
and somnolent air, appeared. 

“ I fell asleep, I’m afraid, sir,” said he, as he took 
his master’s coat. 

“ He’d sack me, but he don’t dare,” thought Bates, 
when he returned to his whisky and w^ater. 

The next morning, Carew ordered him to pack his 
portmanteau with a peremptory ring in his voice. 

“ I am going down to Elcourt by the three o’clock 
train. Put in all I want.” 

“ Yes, sir,” said Bates. 

Carew sat in his chair holding the newspaper in his 
hand, watching the servant as he removed the breakfast 
things. 

Bates, he noted, was beginning to look yellow about 
the cheeks and puffy under the eyes. 

“You know I am to be married on the 14th of 
April,” said Carew. 

“ Yes, sir,” said the servant, sweeping the crumbs 
into his salver with a swifter movement of the 
brush. 

“ Do you desire to continue in my service?” 


100 


CORRUPTION. 


They looked at one another across the table with a 
different shape of the same thought in their minds. 

“ What does this fellow know of me beyond that?” 
Carew wondered, recalling the night when the Manner- 
ings nearly met in his chambers. 

“ It is for you to decide, sir,” said Bates with proud 
humility. 

“ I know that,” replied Carew sharply, ‘‘ but I asked 
you what you desired.” 

“ If you will permit me to say so, sir,” said Bates, “ I 
think it would be as well, both for you, and me, sir, if I 
stayed.” 

“ What do you mean ? Plenty of other men can 
polish boots and brush coats.” 

“ Beg pardon, sir, for not making myself clear, but I 
meant to say that I understand your ways better than 
a new man could. I have been with you ever since you 
represented the Beau vis division of Westshire. Came to 
you, sir, from Colonel Leuker of the Engineers, from 
Plymouth, with a three years’ character. I was butler 
to the colonel, sir, and I’ve been thinking that you 
might be willing to take me on as butler to you.” 

Carew had recovered his temper. Bates was not his 
idea of a butler. 

“ A butler’s place is a very trying one. Bates, and I 
don’t think its dignities entirely compensate for its 
dangers and temptations, however the place is already 
filled.” 

The man’s face fell. The manner in which his 
master dwelt on the “ temptations ” wounded his pride. 


CORRUPTION. 


101 


“ I hope, sir, you don’t think that I wasn’t strictly 
sober last night,” he said. 

“ You mustn’t cross-examine me,” replied Carew, 
“lest I hurt your feelings, which, I know, are sensitive 
— especially on this point. Let us perfectly understand 
one another. I am not ungrateful for several years 
service. If it suits you, you can continue with me in 
the same capacity, but on an increased wage of £5 a 
year. If, on the other hand, you wish to leave, I will 
give you two months’ salary, a ten pound note, and an 
excellent character.” 

“ I think it will be better for me to stay, sir, if you 
don’t mind.” 

“Your preference is flattering,” said Carew, “one 
word more. Bates. There is a saying, with which, I 
have no doubt, you are familiar, that ‘ no man is a hero 
to his own valet.’ Permit me to be a hero to the valets 
of other people if you please. I trust you will encour- 
age no gossip with the other servants. Hitherto your 
discretion has been admirable, and I see no reason why 
Vv^e should not continue to respect one another. Bates.” 

“ Thank you, sir, I hope so.” 

“ Well, that’s settled,” said Carew suddenl}^ altering 
the ironical tone, which had not increased the servant’s 
comfort or temper, to one of command. “You will 
meet me with my portmanteau at Victoria Station in 
good time for the four o’clock train.” 

“ Certainly, sir.” 

But Bates brooded over the lost butlership. “ The 
gov’nor will give me what I like,” he had said to him- 


102 


CORRUPTION. 


self. He had bragged about his new office in anticipa- 
tion at the little tavern near the mews, “ o2 Down 
Street.” However, he could console himself with the 
thought that the place was well worth having. 

“ It wouldn’t do for me to lose sight of the gov’nor,” 
he reflected. “ He’s a wonderful man, and well worth 
valeting. But this marriage is a queer start ! ” 

Students and analysts of human actions are found 
in all ranks of society. Bates’ eye was at the small 
chink, whence he could watch his master, but now he 
suspected Carew was conscious it was open. 

When Bates and the Muirs’ footman had seen Carew 
and Miss Muir, and Miss Muir’s maid, into the train 
they stood on the platform and discussed the approach- 
ing marriage. 

Carew’s political position appealed strongly to the 
imagination of the footman, who was a constant reader 
of the Cornet. 

Bates was inclined to be cynical that morning, be- 
cause his master had snubbed him. 

“ Carew’s no better an’ no worse than the rest of the 
world,” said he with an air of patronage. 

“ Our young lady’s dre’dfully gone on him,” said the 
footman. “ Celestine, her maid, tells me it is quite ridicu- 
lous. But I should fancy the marriage would be a good 
one for you, Mr. Bates. Hot too much money on your 
side, they tell me, for a big parliamentary swell like Mr. 
Carew. And then, there is a talk of debts.” 

Bates regarded him critically, and found him rosy- 
looking, and, to his jaundiced eye, callow. 


CORRUPTION. 


103 


“ You take my tip,” he said, with the air of a rector 
addressing his curate, “ you’re young, and doubtless 
well-meaning. Never you mind what they tell you 
about the gov’nor. Carew’s a coming man. I knew it 
when I accepted his place, for, between ourselves, I 
might have done better, for the pickings are poor, and 
the gov’nor’s tongue’s like whipcord. Unless things 
come to pass that ain’t likely to come to pass, we shall 
be bigger people than yours. Money-bags ain’t ev’ry- 
thing, let me tell you. Besides your ^ov’nor knows 
well enough he gets quite as much out of this marriage 
as mine does.” 

“ Well, I hope it will turn out comfor’ble for the 
young lady, that’s all,” said the Muirs’ footman, as he 
swung into his seat by the coachman, “ she’s the best 
and kindest I ever drove with. There’s a look in your 
gov’nor’s eye which isn’t altogether pleasant, Mr. Bates. 
I wish you good afternoon.” 

The carriage drove off, and Bates bought a sporting 
paper and retired to the refreshment room. 

Meanwhile the train sped on to Elcourt. It was 
the first railway journey Constance Muir had ever 
taken with the man she loved, and she was supremely 
happy. 

“ Don’t you think it was nice of Beatrice ” — for to 
Carew’s secret discomfort they had become Constance 
and Beatrice to each other — “ to ask us down. En- 
gaged people are not generally popular as guests.” 

“ Are they not ? ” 

“ No. They have the reputation of being bores.” 


104 


CORRUPTION. 


Carew laughed. 

“ You are thinking of the common sort who adver- 
tise their relationship by holding hands at every oppor- 
tunity ! ” 

The train was dashing through a wooded country 
just fringed with the tenderest green. The banks 
were splashed with the soft yellow of primroses, and 
ripples of life — of bird, of plant, of insect — moved 
invisibly round the austere trunks of the leafless 
oaks. 

“ What a blue day it is, Paul ! ” the girl exclaimed, 
feeling to the full the charm of the moment. “ You — 
and all this ” — she indicated the landscape that swept 
by them — “ are mixed up in my mind. Some of you is 
in the primrose beds, but most of you is high up in the 
blue, near heaven, helping the larks to sing ! ” 

“ I’m glad you are happy,” he said. 

“But you are too ? ” 

“ Yes, of course, only the joy of life doesn’t flourish 
so luxuriantly in the brain of a harassed politician as in 
the heart of a beautiful girl like you. Shall I tell you 
what makes you happy ? ” 

“ I know — loving you ! ” 

“No, not that. It is because you are pure and sin- 
less and trustful. I don’t think the best sort of happi- 
ness lasts after twenty-five. A thin stream of disillu- 
sion trickles into the thirties and corrodes it.” 

“ But are you thinking of yourself, Paul ? ” 

“ Of course, a little. We have nothing else to meas- 
ure the universe by. But I believe to be good, to be 


CORRUPTION. 


105 


young, and to be healthy are the necessary ingredients 
of happiness.” 

“Then who is happier than you, Paul? You are 
very, very good, and have youth and health in abun- 
dance. But, perhaps, you mean wanting things — ambi- 
tion, I mean, is a worry ? ” 

“Yes, perhaps I do. We all want to see the other 
side of the moon, and I don’t believe Diana showed it, 
even to Hyperion.” 

“ If I were Diana, you should see it, Paul.” 

“ Even if it wasn’t good for me ? ” 

“ Yo, not then.” 

Then they w^atched the spring landscape that flew 
past the windows. 

Carew beheld, but without dismay, the gulf sepa- 
rating him from the girl, whose love for him gratified 
his vanity, and kindled the softer emotions of his' com- 
plex nature. If the passion, the pity, the ambition, the 
massive selfishness of the intricate entanglement of 
thoughts and desires that filled his mind had been 
sifted and expressed in words, his legend would have 
been, “ I am above the law.” But no analyst of himself 
ever reaches his real self ; it eludes him, and is lost be- 
neath the clouds in the twilight recesses. 

The coarsely admiring view which Bates held of his 
master’s character was much nearer the truth than 
Carew’s own estimate of himself. 

“You have no more right,” he said one night in 
the House of Commons, when speaking of an unpopu- 
lar proposal in the Prime Minister’s Land Bill, “ to 


106 


CORRUPTION. 


judge a measure by one weak clause, than to convict a 
man or a woman for a blemish, even though in your 
eyes it amounts to a vice. There is no need to judge 
hastily because we feel strongly.” 

Beatrice had smiled when she read this, for she un- 
derstood the feeling that prompted the speaker; but 
Constance Muir thought, “ How generous he is ! ” 

And so he was — to himself. But Bates, squinting 
cunningly through the chink, read his master aright, 
and admired him with oblique respect, as a pick-pocket 
might a dashing highwayman. “ Carew,” reflected 
Bates, “ does what he likes, and don’t care a damn, so 
long as he’s not found out.” 

The complications which this visit to Elcourt sug- 
gested in Carew’s mind oppressed him. 

“ Paul has so much to think of,” Constance thought. 
Whenever his eyes met hers they were kind and soft, 
and she forebore to interrupt his reverie. His strong 
profile against the light charmed her. 

But the train, with a petulant grinding of the 
wheels and of the air-brake, stopped at a wayside sta- 
tion, overshadowed from the bank above by three tall 
firs. Here a smart victoria and a cart for their limo-ao-e 
met them. 

They drove swiftly away side by side on the soft 
cushions into a land of green hedgerows. 

Their road lay across a charming pastoral country. 
A line of rounded hills shut out the cold winds, and the 
unmolested spring lit up the tepid hollows with white 
blossoms and the tender flickerings of half-expanded 


CORRUPTION. 


107 


leaves. Tlie soft wind that fanned their faces smelt of 
the moist earth, of invisible violets, of the vigour of 
young life. The peace of the hour, and the beauty of 
the day enthroned themselves in the girl’s heart. She 
loved the lambs in the fields and the singing thrushes 
in the copses with a deeper tenderness and a closer 
knowledge. 

“ How lovely it is to be here with you, Paul ! ” 

“ Kind little heart ! ” he answered. “ But you are 
but a spring blossom yourself.” 

Soon in the distance Elcourt Hall stood out against 
the soft sky, red-bricked and mellow- tinted, amid 
sweeping lawns and tall elms, “a haunt of ancient 
peace,” such as, to the English eye, can exist nowhere 
outside these islands. 

“Wasn’t it kind of Beatrice to send her victoria to 
meet us ? ” said Constance, suddenly reverting from the 
poetry of love and spring to the facts of existence. “ It 
is her new one. Mr. Mannering intended to give it to 
her on her next birthday, but she found out his inten- 
tion, and insisted on having it as an ‘unbirthday 
present.’ I like those large victorias with Cee springs, 
don’t you?” 

“ Yes, I’m fond of my comfort.” 

“ I don’t believe you care a bit about it. But I’m 
glad you’re not fussy. Your man Bates gives you a 
splendid character. I believe I can see Beatrice in the 
garden from here.” 

“ There is a figure in a white dress, but it might be 
anybod}^” said he. 


108 


CORRUPTION. 


Then a turn in the road hid the distant lawn ; only 
the red gables and some shining oriel windows were 
visible above the young spinnies that now bordered the 
way. 

“ Do you know, Paul ? ” said the girl, struck by a 
sudden thought, “ I do agree with mamma it is a pity 
the Mannerings have no children, don’t you think so ? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Do you think Beatrice regrets it ? ” 

“ jN'o. She is a philosopher.” 

“ Mr. Mannering does. If he were to die Elcourt 
would go to . his cousin ; Beatrice told me so herself. 
But then Mr. Mannering ‘isn’t likely to die, is he?” 

“ No ; especially as he has smothered his ambition to 
shine as a gentleman jockey. And he can ride ! ” 

“ He only gave it up because he is so fond of her,” 
said Constance Muir, unconscious of the trouble rising 
in his face. 

“ Did she tell you so ? ” 

“ No ; Beatrice never exactly tells one anything. 
Mr. Mannering did, when I was here last. He had 
entered a horse at Ringwood Steeplechase. I asked 
him for fun why he didn’t ride it himself, and he said, 
If I came a bad cropper there wouldn’t be anyone left, 
to look after Beattie ! ’ His nice blue eyes looked quite 
pathetic. He is very fond of her.” 

“ He used to leave her for months once,” said 
Carew. 

“ Yes, do you know why?” 

“ No.” 


CORRUPTION. 


109 


“ Because lie thought she didn’t care for him.” 

“ Isn’t that rather an odd reason ? ” 

“ I’m not sure, Paul. But you ought to know 
whether she was in love with Mr. Mannering when 
they were married.” 

“ Friends, especially v/hen they are cousins, are the 
last to hear of these things,” he answered uneasily. 

“ Perhaps she was in love with you, Paul,” said the 
girl smiling, “and you never knew it. I should not 
wonder in the least.” 

The most innocent hand sometimes shoots the 
sharpest dart. 

Carew, who had been recoiling from the conversation, 
suddenly looked stern and hard. The sudden change in 
his face dismayed her, and she was unconscious of her 
offence. 

“ I didn’t mean to pain you ! ” she said meekly. 

But still he made no reply. Her heart ached in the 
silence. 

“ You mustn’t be angry with me,” she said beseech- 
ingly. “ I know you hate gossip. Forgive me.” 

Her submission assuaged him and revealed the 
depth of her trust. 

“ There is nothing to forgive,” he replied. “ In the 
lives of most people there is something their friends 
cannot account for. Possibly it is so with the Manner- 
ings. It is best not to probe these obscure places. 
Nothing hut evil ever comes of it.” 

The real cause of his smothered irritation had a dif- 
ferent source. 


110 


CORRUPTION. 


Whenever Constance Muir reminded Carew that he 
was a hypocrite, his anger was in proportion to the 
shame he ought to have felt. Her love sometimes 
measured the depth of his perfidy. For a moment 
Constance bowed her head under her humiliation. She 
felt that she had been justly rebuked. “ I must never 
forget,” she reflected, “ that Paul cannot endure petty 
meannesses and ill-natured gossip. He is right to 
scold me.” 

When the carriage entered the lodge gates, this gen- 
tle victim of the mirage which love makes accepted the 
reproof as evidence of Carew’s stately magnanimity. “ I 
promise you, Paul, that I will never vex you again by 
talking ill-natured nonsense.” 

Her contrition soothed him with complacency. 

“ I am the hear of the fairy tale,” he replied, smiling 
into her troubled face, “and you are the pretty rose. 
I growl because it is my nature, and stir all your soft 
pink petals. Look ! it was Mrs. Mannering on the lawn 
after all.” 

“ Yes, in a white dress. How it becomes her. See ! 
her hair shines like bronze in the sun.” 

“ You come,” said Beatrice, as she greeted them, 
“ like two swallows on the wings of the sunshine and 
the west wind. But Connie looks solemn. Has he been 
lecturing you, dear, or explaining bimetalism.” 

“ I was telling her a fairy tale about a bear and a 
rose,” interposed Carew. 

“ I am relieved it is a fairy tale. Fancy, if you had 
quarrelled on the eve of your wedding day ! ” 


CORRUPTION. 


Ill 


“ 0 Beatrice, I can’t quarrel,” said the girl, flushing 
slightly. 

“Can’t you? I’m afraid I am full of pugnacious 
instincts. The gardener has roused them all by plant- 
ing white crocuses in that bed instead of yellow ones. 
But come indoors and take oR your things.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

“ This marriage of yours is horrible, Paul,” said 
Beatrice, “ and I hate it.” 

They were together at the open French window of 
the long, low drawing-room. 

Constance Muir and Mannering were looking at the 
tulip beds on the lav>^n, just out of ear-shot. The rim 
of April sun was sloping towards the velvet lines of the 
western hills, and the thrushes broke the grave silence 
with emulous bursts of song. 

“ It is an odious thing to do,” she continued, “ ex- 
cept the ‘ lust of plenty,’ which you might forego, it has 
no excuse. I have been thinking, thinking, and think- 
ing. The more I think the worse it seems. I got you 
here to see exactly how it felt. Even the deadly, mor- 
bid interest of the situation isn’t compensation enough.” 

“ But you would have it,” he replied. “ What has 
come to you? Are you” — he hesitated for the word 
which she supplied. 

“Jealous?” she interposed. “Yes, I am. You are 
8 


112 


CORRUPTION. 


playing your part too naturally for art. If you asked 
me to do now what you proposed at Portradock in the 
autumn, I believe I should consent. Does not that 
show how mad I have become?” 

“ It’s too late now, you dare not.” 

“ You would take me away if I wished it? ” 

“Yes; but you won’t wish it, Beatrice. Our lives 
must run in the grooves we have worn for them. 
Where is Circe’s philosophy ? ” 

“ Circe is dead this evening,” she answered. “ Your 
philosophy, the philosophy you taught me, is in tatters. 
I am less callous. The acid has burnt through the 
skin, and I feel more like a jealous housemaid than a 
woman of our world. I can’t trust you with her. If I 
can read her pretty face you snubbed her coming down. 
There are symptoms of the pedant in you. I wish the 
bear would scratch his rose.” 

“ I will never hurt the innocent child asrain.” 

“ Innocent ! all women are innocent till you know 
what they think and how they reason. I am — to look 
at.” 

So she was, as the golden light of the low sun fell 
on her beautiful face, and lit up the soft folds of the 
white silk of her dress. Two spots of colour were on 
her cheeks, and her eyes shone. 

“ But she is innocent and good, and you know it,” 
he insisted. “She is fond of you. The trouble was 
about you.” 

“ How ? but come to the end of the lawn, and leave 
them to their tulips.” They moved from the window 


CORRUPTION. 


113 


ou to the path, and walked side by side to the stone 
balustrade that divided the well- tended garden from 
the rough undulating park-land, where the last year’s 
bracken, brown and sere, clustered round the trunks of 
the old oaks and elms. 

“ Tell me all she said,” Beatrice resumed, leaning 
her arms on the grey stone before her. 

The young leaves and the withered undergrowth 
rustled, but with different murmurings, to the moving 
wind. The undertone seemed a sigh of reproach. 

“ She often talks of you,” he answered, speaking 
slowly, “ and our friendship. She fancies there was a 
time when you and Mannering were not the model 
couple you now appear, and makes the usual conjec- 
tures one expects from an inexperienced and innocent 
girl.” 

“ Don’t insist so much on the innocence, please ; it 
gets on my nerves.” 

“ They were stronger once,” he retorted. 

“ What is her virginal theory ? ” 

“ Oh, it’s simple enough. She thinks that possibly 
when you married Mannering you cared for him less 
than you have learnt to since.” 

“ Did her original conjectures lead her no further ? ” 

“ Yes, a little. She thinks that perhaps you once 
cared for some one else.” 

“ Did she give her Lancelot a name ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Who was it ? ” 


“ It doesn’t matter.” 


114 


CORRUPTION. 


“ Her noble Paul, of course. I can read her like a 
Low-Church tract.” 

“ Don’t be bitter, Beatrice.” 

“ And I suppose you looked like young St. Kevin, 
much beloved against your will.” 

“ I was angry with her, and she nearly cried. I told 
her not to talk nonsense, and she promised never to say 
ill-natured things again.” 

“ Poor, meek Griselda ! But she is near the truth, 
Paul.” 

“No, not very, Beatrice. For you are ceasing to 
love me, and I love you like an unreasoning fool. It 
is the one honest thing about me.” 

Then her mood, softened by his tone of passionate 
conviction and the transitory loveliness of evening, 
changed. 

“A fiend has been here all day long,” she said, 
placing her hand on her throat. “ When you arrived 
just now with a ridiculous nuptial appearance about 
you, it nearly choked me. The fiend’s voice, not mine, 
has been jeering at you. Come ! I’ll be amiable. Let 
us go in. You shall see how good I will be for the rest 
of the evening ! ” 

“ Be what you always have been, the most beautiful 
woman I have ever known. Your eyes shine like stars, 
and your red lips make my senses ache.” 

“ You do love me, then, Paul ?” 

“ Yes, with all my soul ! But be Circe again.” 

“ Come on in, Beattie, you’ll catch cold ! ” shouted 
Mannering from the window. 


CORRUPTION. 


115 


The pale evening planet was shining through the 
faint pink of the twilight as they walked back in silence 
under the thin veil of a delusive peace. 

At dinner, Beatrice was radiant and brilliant; on 
her breast shone Carew’s diamonds, which she had 
never worn before. 

“Why, Beattie I” exclaimed Mannering, “isn’t that 
a new pendant ? ” 

“ Yes ; and the emblem of thrift, bought out of my 
own savings. Pretty, isn’t it?” 

Mannering laughed. 

“ I never knew you were a capitalist. You will 
come to me for a cheque to pay your dressmaker soon. 
It’s a beauty. Don’t you think so, Carew? Why 
didn’t you tell me you wanted it? What did you give 
for it ? ” 

“ Perhaps I thought you had given me enough for 
one year.” 

“ ISTever mind what it cost. It is paid for. I gave 
it myself, because I am good. I shall leave it in my 
will to Connie, who has the most right to it.” 

“ If I am alive, then,” Miss Muir answered, “ I shall 
be too old for diamonds. But she doesn’t mean what 
she says ; does she, Mr. Mannering ? Besides, I haven’t 
a right to it, really ; have I ? ” 

“ I think you have every right to all pretty things,” 
said Mannering gallantly, as he led her to the dining- 
room. 

“ Don’t frown, Paul,” whispered Beatrice, as they 
walked across the sweet-scented, oak-panelled hall. 


116 


CORRUPTION. 


where the big log fire burned brightly. “ I wore it for 
you. It rides just above my heart, which is your 
throne.” 

The table, with its delicate china and silver, glowed 
like a white and fiower-laden altar under the lamp- 
lio-ht. The rich dark curtains drawn across the wide 

o 

latticed windows, the old oak furniture, the pictures 
and portraits of several generations of Mannerings, 
seemed to smile with a mysterious welcome on 
Carew. 

It was his first visit to Elcourt. The time-enduring 
aspect of the place, the suggestions of w’hat was gone 
rather than what was to come, calmed the feverish im- 
portance of the present. The lilac bushes shortly to fill 
the old garden with colour and odour, had bloomed, 
faded, and been forgotten before the warm, moist June 
day when Waterloo was fought. The ring of firs on the 
hill above had been planted by Mannering’s grand- 
father to commemorate the victory, and this was only 
the near past whose fringe we still can feel. The fall 
of Ministries, the roar of revolution, the eager rush of 
a hungry democracy, all the strife, stir, and tumult had 
fioated by the strong red walls like thistle-down, never 
troubling the calm of Elcourt. 

In the letters Carew had received from Beatrice 
soon after her marriage, she had described the house 
and the old gardens so vividly that to his yearning 
fancy it almost seemed that he must have visited it in 
some prenatal existence, and he experienced that pecul- 
iar fascination of the mind when some vague anticipa- 


CORRUPTION. 117 

tion, unconsciously formed years before, is apparently 
realised. 

“We didn’t even ask the rector and his wife to meet 
you,” said Beatrice. “ He objects a little to Gerald as 
a Carewite, but adores him as a sportsman. His wife 
would quite respect me if I could get my dresses in 
the market-town at her own ‘ modiste,’ as she calls the 
little dressmaker in the High Street. She says I am 
worldly, but ‘ sound ’ — theologically, she means. They 
are very anxious to see Paul, so they are to lunch here 
to-morrow.” 

“ I can dine in comfort without the support of the 
Establishment,” said Carew. “Some careless votes in 
the House, given for a consideration to the enemies of 
the Bishops, have forced the clergy to regard me as 
a sort of spoiler of saints’ noses armed with a radical 
hammer.” 

“ Whenever a debate on Disendowment comes on I 
shall escape the party whips,” said Mannering. “ I 
can’t ‘ go ’ for the Church.” 

“ Of course you can’t,” said his wife. “ Gerald be- 
lieves in a State Church, because it encourages cricket.” 

“Hot really? ” said Miss Muir, who had been ad- 
miring Carew’s straight profile across the flowers. 

“ Until our rector came there was no cricket club in 
the village. We have an excellent one now. That is 
what Beattie means,” said Mannering, laughing. 

“ The rector agitates for the club, the squire pays 
for it and provides the ground, and then finds no one 
wants to play except the rector’s sons when they are 


118 


CORRUPTION. 


home for their holidays. This,” said Carew, “ is the 
history of village cricket in brief.” 

“You kill all our ideals, Paul,” replied Beatrice 
Mannering. “We have all been brought up to regard 
cricket as the national sport, and the Established 
Church as the national religion, and you come among 
us preaching golf and dissent under the very shadow of 
Gerald’s ancestors.” 

“ They would ‘ sit up ’ if they could hear Carew 
talking,” said Mannering, looking round at their por- 
traits. 

“ One generation cares very little for the prejudices 
of the preceding one,” said Carew, glancing at the dia- 
monds shining on Beatrice’s white throat. “ We only 
talk about the ‘ wisdom of our ancestors,’ and scarcely 
ever take it down from the shelf for modern use except 
to excuse our blunders.” 

“ But isn’t there such a thing as ‘ ancestral worship ’ 
somewhere ? ” asked Beatrice. 

“ Yes, in China, I fancy. It is the ‘ Great Wall ’ of 
creeds and the death-chamber of progress. It is a little 
odd, though, that religion should begin and end in the 
same place.” 

“ I believe religion is merely a question of tempera- 
ment,” said Beatrice ; “ don’t look anxious, Gerald, the 
servants are out of the room. Sometimes I’m well on 
the right side of orthodoxy, at other times I sit happily 
in the lap of Agnosticism and feel a bias for creed per- 
secution.” 

“ You can’t be serious,” said Constance Muir, who 


CORRUPTION. 


119 


had been listening to Carew and Beatrice skipping from 
cricket to ancestral worship with an ease and flippancy 
that suggested an understanding. “ You play the 
organ in church. No one who was an infidel could 
possibly do that.” 

“ When I come to think of it seriously,” said Bea- 
trice, smiling slightly, “ I suppose I couldn’t.” 

“ Don’t mind what Beatrice says,” said Mannering ; 
“ she is always posing as a terrible worldling.” 

“ When I break theological windows, Gerald, you 
shall send the glazier to mend them,” said his wife. 
“ But hadn’t you better keep an eye on Paul’s ortho- 
doxy, Connie ? ” 

“ It seems diflerent for a man,” said the girl ; “ men 
never make a pose of irreligion.” 

“ That’s one for you, Beatrice,” said Mannering, 
laughing. 

“ I don’t mean that,” said Constance, colouring ; 
“ Beatrice can’t pose. Religion is the one thing that 
shines in the dark and flashes in the light — like your 
pendant, Beatrice — and comforts the people who don’t 
suller from Vv^hat my mother calls ‘ the pride of in- 
tellect.’ ” 

“ My diamonds,” said Beatrice, glancing down at 
her beautiful bare neck, “ are a bad image to choose. 
They represent extreme worldliness, they represent the 
lust of the eye, they represent jealousy, they represent 
abominations generally. They are anathema ! What is 
there that these diamonds do not represent, Paul ? ” 

“ Ask him after the 14th,” said Mannering, 


120 


CORRUPTION. 


laughing. “ He has scarcely begun to give diamonds 
yet.” 

“ All I know of diamonds,” said Carew, “ is that I 
once had shares in a mine which didn’t pay. I sold out 
at a loss when they wanted to make me a director. 
Now the diamonds are so plentiful that they are limit- 
ing the output.” 

“ How strange if Beatrice’s diamonds should have 
been found in your mine,” said Constance Muir. 

“ These came straight from Golconda — wherever 
that is,” said Beatrice, who was morbidly enjoying the 
conversation. “ I know the peculiar sparkle.” 

“ I prefer the sparkle of cliampagne,” said Carew, as 
the servant filled his glass. 

“ That is like a man preferring the pleasures of the 
appetite to the delights of the eye ! ” said Beatrice. 
“ But do you prefer the sparkle when someone else 
drinks the wine ? ” She helped up her own glass for 
him to look at, and laughed into his eyes across the 
brim. “ I prefer Circe’s wine.” 

“ What is that ? ” asked Constance Muir. 

“ The brand is advertised in Matthew Arnold’s 
poems,” explained Beatrice, still smiling at Carew. 

“ Circe’s somebody who lives in the classical diction- 
ary, in Smith and Lempriere,” said Mannering. “ I 
always thought she kept pigs. You ought to be fined 
for a classical allusion at dinner, Beattie.” 

“ But dinner is over,” said Beatrice, “ so Connie and 
I will leave Paul to tell you all about Circe.” 

“ My wife’s in wonderful form to-night,” said Man- 


CORRUPTION. 


121 


Tiering proudly, as he closed the door behind her. “ It 
is a relief to see her herself again.” 

“ Hasn’t she been herself, then ? ” asked Carew. 

“ Yes — but a little odd now and then. I fancy 
women always are. I mean with her peculiar tempera- 
ment.” 

“ I always thought your wife had wonderful even 
spirits.” 

“ But you have only seen the outside of her character. 
But what will you drink, Carew ? ” 

“ Oh, anything ! ” 

“ I have an old-fashioned habit, or rather it isn’t a 
habit, it is a tradition at Elcourt, of marking some par- 
ticular day by drinking some particular wine.” 

“ It is a good honest practice,” said Carew, “ when 
the wine is as good as yours. No one but a temperance 
fanatic with an hereditary alcoholic taint in his blood 
could object to it.” 

Then the butler entered. 

“ There is a little ’47 port left, isn’t there, Bich- 
ards ? ” 

“ A dozen and three bottles, sir.” 

“ Bring us a bottle, please.” 

The fire blazed up with the dry logs that had re- 
plenished it ; a pleasant smell of the wood faintly sug- 
gested itself in the hospitable and kindly room. 

“ What a delightful place you have,” said Carew. 

“Yes. It’s a dear old place, isn’t it? No angles 
here, and nothing to knock against you. It is dismal 
to think what a number of places of the same kind — 


122 


CORRUPTION. 


Elizabethan manor houses, Jacobean country seats — 
that have fallen into the hands of the mortgagees.’’ 

The butler had meanwhile decanted the wine. 

The dancing firelight flung the gleams of glass and 
silver into the purple centre of the costly liquor as it 
glowed clear and untroubled in the massive cut glass — 
its temporary home. 

“ What have you dreamt of in the deep Elcourt 
cellars, 0 wdne of dignity and worth,” said Carew, apos- 
trophising the wine he poured into his glass ; “ or have 
you slept in peace like the tutelary guardian of the 
bins?” 

“ Slept, I fancy,” replied Mannering, holding his 
glass to the light, “ for there is no trouble here. What 
do you think of it? ” 

“ It is a glorious wine in perfect condition ! ” 

“ It is good,” said Mannering. “ But to think there 
are only fourteen bottles left. My governor left me a 
fine cellar of wine, dear old chap ! It is little hard, 
Carew, that if I leave any good liquor that my cousin 
will drink it. There is only one thing wanting here. 
You can guess what that is.” 

’47 port opens a man’s heart, and makes him talk of 
what is nearest to it. 

“ You are naturally disappointed you haven’t a son,” 
said Carew ; “ but when I recall the average amount of 
satisfaction the possessors of entailed estates derive 
from their eldest sons, I’m not at all sure that I ought 
to pity you.” 

“ But I was meant to have a son,” said Manner- 


CORRUPTION. 


123 


iug, siiDpiiig liis wine and looking thoughtfully in the 
fire. 

The polished sideboards and picture-frames snig- 
gered genially in the warm glow of the room as though 
enjoying the irony of the situation. 

“ Is your wife disappointed, too ? ” 

“ Beattie’s different to other women. She hops 
round a subject in a bird-like fanciful way. It isn’t 
quite easy to explain to an outsider what I mean. 
When we were first married I didn’t understand her — 
no one ever does understand a woman. Perhaps you 
will agree wdth me some day.” 

“ I do now, and on my limited experience.” 

“ Bachelors, especially those who never knew a 
decent woman in their lives, aren’t generally so liberal- 
minded ; you know my wife w'ell enough -to see she is a 
puzzle. When we w'ere first married, we hadn’t so 
many tastes in common as we have now. W e w^ere good 
enough chums, but pulled somehow in different direc- 
tions. I had only to say I wanted to shoot a hippo- 
potamus and she would advise me to pack up at once 
and bag it. Well — you’ll understand— sometimes I used 
to take her at her word ” — 

“ And shoot a hippopotamus out of pique,” inter- 
posed Carew. 

“ Oh, I see the comic side of the business,” answered 
Mannering ; “ that’s just the sort of thing, Beattie 
would say. Sometimes I fancy you are rather alike. 
You say exactly the same things. I confess the free 
and easy sort of life suited me well enough. If I came 


124 


CORRUPTION. 


home, I was welcome ; if I went abroad, I was welcome, 
too. No one would have been nicer or more reasonable. 
I’m not complaining. But one day it dawned on me — 
but, help yourself — ’47 port gives a point to the dullest 
story — that I wasn’t treating Beattie fairly ; so we had 
a long explanation, and both decided that marriage 
must be a give-and-take arrangement, and it wasn’t a 
bit like what the young man fancies and the young 
maid dreams. We seasoned the compact with my wife’s 
philosophy. The fact is people who live together must 
worry each other to some extent. Bor instance, Beattie 
has got nerves ; tell her the same thing twice, or make 
pointless remarks, she can’t help snapping. But amuse 
her, please her, and she is an angel. Just as a man gets 
used to a new gun that suits him, so he does to a wife ; 
I mean if she runs straight, and doesn’t think it a smart 
thing to ‘ spoof ’ him. I tell you this, Carew, chiefly 
because I want you to understand why I seemed so 
casual when I first married, but partly because you are 
going to be married yourself.” 

“And this thick-headed honest fragment of the 
squirearchy thinks he is like me ! ” thought Carew con- 
temptuously, amused to hear from Mannering a story he 
had gathered from Beatrice, but with a different inter- 
pretation. 

“ I could only get used to Gerald,” she had once told 
him, “ in instalments — I preferred them quarterly — like 
a good wholesome moral story in a magazine that you 
can read with moderate satisfaction, if you don’t have 
too much of it at a time.” 


CORRUPTION. 


125 


“ Many thanks for your advice, Mannering ; I agree 
with you. A reasonable man can’t do better than come 
to an understanding with the woman he lives with. 
There ! that’s the last of your port. We must go into 
the drawing-room. Your wife will think we are bac- 
chanals.” 

“ You needn’t fear that. She puts you on a pedes- 
tal, and when I bore her, says, ‘ Look at that.’ ” 

Mannering was quite happy at the understanding he 
felt existing between them. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


“ At last ! ” said Beatrice, as the men entered the 
drawing-room. “ I read in a lady’s paper an answer to 
a correspondent that it was no longer the custom for 
gentlemen to sit over their wine after the ladies had 
gone. You are condemned by a court of etiquette.” 

“ The last days of Carew’s bachelorhood are our 
excuse,” said Mannering. “ But sing something, please, 
Miss Muir, and forget our delinquencies. I am so fond 
of music ! ” 

“ Yes, he is, after dinner, like all sentimental ma- 
terialists,” said Beatrice. “ But do comfort him with 
song. What shall Connie sing, Paul ? ” 

“ It’s useless to ask him,” Miss Muir replied ; “ I 
don’t think you have ever heard me, have you, Paul ? ” 

“ Xo,” said he. “ So, please, sing something now.” 


126 


CORRUPTION. 


She went to the piano and sang a pretty little 
lullaby with an agreeable rocking refrain, a ditty such 
as a young matron who had “ been taught under the 
best masters ” might with propriety sing to her first 
baby. 

“ Thanks very much, dear ! ” said Beatrice, “ for 
your ter cense. Would my nurse had sung as charm- 
ingly as you. But she soothed me with Low Church 
hymns. Her austere dirges still hunt me o’ nights.” 

Her frank smile concealed her real opinion of the 
song which to her aesthetic tastes seemed a thin, “ miss- 
ish,” composition saturated with English commonplace- 
ness, and she knew Carew thought so too. 

“ Thank you very much. Miss Muir,” said Manner- 
ing, who had enjoyed it, and was inclined to be slightly 
drowsy. “ You will be able to sing Carew to sleep with 
it after he has been frightening the House of Lords 
with his thunder. I confess I like songs you can under- 
stand. Beatrice warbles in foreign tongues.” 

“ I love your wife’s singing,” Constance replied as 
she took her seat, faintly disappointed that Carew had 
not exhibited more convincing evidence of his lordly 
approval. “ I’m only what my brother calls ‘ a very 
average performer.’ ‘ It is astonishing,’ he says, ‘ how 
much capital is spent on amateur music for the smallest 
return.’ ” 

“ His taste has been spoilt by the big drum and mili- 
tary bands,” said Carew. “ Dismiss him as a critic.” 

“ If you measure music by ‘ the book of arith- 
metic,’ ” said Beatrice, “ all amateurs and most profes- 


CORRUPTION. 127 

sionals will be unable to look at ‘ Home, Sweet Home,’ 
without blushing.” 

“Why ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ Beatrice?” asked 
^lannering from the depth of his great chair. 

“ Because Patti sings it to my eternal regret.” 

“ I don’t see why. It is a very nice song,” said he. 

“ You would see no incongruity if the music of the 
spheres played ‘ Tommy Atkins,’ ” she retorted. 

“ Poor Circe ! ” thought Carew. “ I was a fool to be 
jealous.” 

“ Sing something, please, Beatrice,” said Constance 
Muir. 

“ What shall it be ? ” 

“ Rubinstein or Schubert,” said the girl. 

“ Whatever you like best,” suggested Carew. 

“ So long as it isn’t about the Fatherland,” added 
Mannering. 

For a moment Beatrice amused herself with the 
keys like a kitten with a reel of cotton. Vivid scraps 
of melody sprang from her finger-tips. Then suddenly 
her clear rich voice followed a series of thrilling chords. 
She had a voice matching her physique — her thick, 
bronze hair, her long delicate fingers, her great deep 
eyes and arched dark brows. 

The song was a different piece of art to the prettily 
attenuated herceuse. It was wild, defiant, passionate, 
languorous, and withal spontaneous. Her heart was in 
her singing. The arithmetical test was forgotten here. 
Certain tones in her beautiful voice stirred Carew 
deeply. 


9 


128 


CORRUPTION, 


“ She wants me to measure the difference between 
them,” he thought, as his eye swept from Miss Muir, 
intently listening on her low seat to the witch at the 
piano, “ and she has shown it. She is a thing of ‘ fire 
and dew ’ to-night.” 

As she sang, his jewels rose and fell on her breast, 
and his own heart beat. 

Her song, quaint, wdld, beautiful, and full of pas- 
sion, seemed to Carew a part of herself as a bird’s 
song is the vocal image of its love and aerial swiftness. 

The melody rose and fell, now fiuttering in momen- 
tary w^eakness of wing, now rising jubilantly. Towards 
the end the thread of defiance haunting the refrain 
strengthened to a burst of triumph as the song rose to 
its climax. 

“ Most lovely, fascinating, and unearthly,” exclaimed 
Constance, wdth a deepened colour. 

“Bravo, Beatrice !” cried Mannering. “You can 
sing ! ” 

“ It must be a witches’ song ! ” said Carew, on the 
curve of his last thought. 

“ Paul is nearly right,” she said, looking round with 
the light of her music shining in her eyes. “It is a 
Czech song, and ever so old ! A Methuselah of song ! 
A little, grim Bohemian singing-master taught it to 
me when I was in Prague. I don’t know the meaning 
of the words, but the story is of a beautiful maiden 
who fell in love with the Prince of Darkness in the 
form of a noble youth; it is called ‘The Fiend’s 
Bride. She paid the usual penalties of our trusting 


CORRUPTION. 


129 


sex. Finalty, to escape her importunity, he revealed 
himself in his true colours, hut, oh, wonderful ! even 
then he couldn’t escape. The revelation only increased 
her passion, and so they went into the abyss together. 
There is an allegorical meaning which I need not ex- 
plain to this intelligent company, need I, Paul ? Love 
and devilry dance through the song hand in hand, but 
it isn’t the theme for your English ballad-maker, who 
dies of nostalgia when he travels too far from ‘ Twick- 
enham Ferry.’ ” 

“ I never heard that song before,” said Mannering. 

“ It is a witches’ song,” said Carew, grasping its 
meaning. 

“ I appreciate the compliment,” replied Beatrice. 
“ All ballad music isn’t an invocation to draw fools into 
a circle. But I’ll break the spell. The ‘ Fiend ’ mood 
isn’t a good one to sleep on. There are whole broods 
of nightmares in it.” 

Then she played the soft movement of the “ Moon- 
light Sonata.” 

“ And that,” she said when she had finished it, “ is 
enough music for to-night, unless Connie will sing 
again.” 

“ Ah, no, Beatrice. My little shadows of song have 
all fled before your fiend. Still I am sorry for the 
lady.” 

“ And I,” said Carew, “ am sorry for the fiend.” 

“She must have upset his domestic arrangements 
considerably,” said Mannering. 

“ She did,” said Beatrice ; “ but that is another 


130 


CORRUPTION. 


song. You sliiill write the words, Paul, and I will 
compose the music.” 

“ If you are not careful, Beattie, Carew will take 
you at your word,” said Mannering, laughing. “He 
might do it in the recess for a ‘ holiday task.’ ” 

“I have holiday tasks enough before me,” said 
Carew. “ Politics have crushed out of me all taste for 
the supernatural.” 

“ Poor Paul ! ” said Constance Muir, looking at him 
with an unconscious air of appropriation, “always so 
terribly busy ! ” 

“ Public men never have time for any pri- 
vate amusements — except golf,” said Carew, feel- 
ing that Beatrice was secretly criticising Miss Muir’s 
manner towards him, and seeing it in a ridiculous 
light. 

“ They report ‘ golf ’ now,” observed Mannering 
thoughtfully. “ A drive I made some time ago that 
w'as pretty well up ammngst the ‘ records ’ was in nearly 
all the papers. Did you see it, Carew? ” 

“ Yes. It inspired an article in the Cornet''^ 

“Every road leads to golf with Gerald,” said 
Beatrice. “Come, Connie, let us leave them. They 
want to smoke, and you want to sleep.” 

In the hall, and whilst Miss Muir’s silken skirts 
were still audibly brushing the stairs above, Carew and 
Beatrice exchanged a few words. 

“ What are you signalling for?” Carew asked. 

She laughed satirically, but swiftly struck off her 
own image. “ A little blue fire, that is all ! I am a 


CORRUPTION. 


131 


ship in distress. The yellow flag with the green spots 
is nailed to the mast.” 

‘‘ Take it down. Jealousy is the wrong flag to fly. 
If you insist on firing rockets, they will end in seeing 
them.” 

“ Gerald’s colour blind.” 

“ But Constance Muir isn’t.” 

“ She will mistake them for ordinary fireworks. I 
am going to talk to her. I mean her to confide in me 
about you. I want her for a hostage.” 

“ Be good to her and leave her alone, Beatrice ! ” 

“ She is an exchange for Gerald. You are forget- 
ting the compact.” 

“ There isn’t one. There can’t be one. There are 
no rules, no laws in the war we wage — you beauti- 
ful witch of Endor. Poor little, pink and white 
hostage ! ” 

“ She is quite safe. It is you who will make her 
weep, not I. I am the tenderest of sinners. But, Paul, 
she isn’t clever. Good-night ! ” 

The footman bearing the tray passed into Manner- 
ing’s room. Carew watched her lithe figure stealing up 
the wide staircase, and went to join Mannering in his 
room, whence the smell of a cigar was drifting across 
the scent of the flowers. 

The grave oak hall without her radiance and charm 
swung into the gloom like a serene summer night 
when a bank of cloud has obscured the splendour of the 


moon. 


132 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER XVIL 

“ I ALWAYS come to my guests’ rooms when 1 like 
them,” said Beatrice, a little later, as she set herself in 
a low chair in Constance Muir’s bedroom. 

Celestine had departed, and her mistress’s hair was 
brushed. 

They made a charming contrast under the light of 
the candles and the wood fire. 

“ I told them to light your fire, Connie. The fiicker 
and crackle mingle so well with one’s dreams.” 

“ How you love luxury, Beatrice ! ” said the girl 
smiling. 

“ It is the one thing needful. I couldn’t live with- 
out it. I am a country parson’s daughter, you know, 
and have to make up for the comparative austerity of 
my early youth.” 

“ Paul has told me what austerity that was. Roses 
all over the old house, and a swing on the great mul- 
berry tree, where you both played when you were chil- 
dren. 0 Beatrice ! I do hope you are really glad we 
are to be married.” 

There was a shade of anxiety on her pretty soft face 
as she spoke. 

“Glad! my dear, of course I am. Paul must 
marry.” 

“But I mean he might marry some one better 
suited to him. He is so clever. He will be a great 


CORRUPTION. 


133 


man and do great tilings. I am not at all clever, and 
a very small person.” 

“Diffidence is a little out of place in a modern 
marriage trousseau, Connie. But don’t you think men 
prefer wives who flatter their pride by a meek adoration 
of their superiority? Ko self-respecting man can en- 
dure a critic in his own domestic circle.” 

“ Ah, you are laughing at me ; and I believe you 
think I am silly.” 

“ I am not laughing. I was merely drawing on my 
stock of experience.” 

“ I don’t think Paul cares about flattery. Do 
you ? ” 

“ I have known him all my life, and always found 
him very human. Paul likes being admired like the 
rest of us, and I am convinced he will expect it from 
his wife.” 

“ He shall have it. There is no one like him in the 
world. It all seems too good to be true. I am a very 
lucky girl.” 

“Not so lucky as you deserve,” replied Beatrice 
softly, watching her sensitive face. 

“ You want to say nice things. You know I am far 
luckier.” 

“ The lady of my song who married the Prince of 
Darkness blessed her happy star,” said Beatrice. 

“But Paul is a Prince of Light. We shall have a 
lovely life, Beatrice.” 

But Constance paused. She lived in dread of hurt- 
ing the feelings of others. Was it in the best taste to 


134 


CORRUPTION. 


Taunt of her certain prospects of unstinted bliss to a 
woman to whom she suspected happiness had been dealt 
out in another measure ? 

“ But there ! ” she added quickly, “ I suppose no 
one’s marriage life is quite like a woman’s anticipation 
of it.” 

“ That is because we expect too much. ‘ Blessed is 
the woman who expects nothing, for she shall not be 
disappointed.’ The worst of that cynical beatitude is 
that it does away with the pleasures of hope.” 

Then Constance was sure that she had hurt her 
feelings. She remembered the reproof of Carew’s 
frown and could not forget that Beatrice and he had 
passed their early lives with only a tangled hedge and 
a wicket-gate as a barrier between them. So with a 
strangely mixed feeling she thought, “ I believe she 
once was fond of Paul.” But she could never know. 
Finally, it was the undercurrent of pique which made 
her speak. 

“ How wonderfully you and Paul understand one 
another ! ” she said. 

Beatrice, divining an infusion of jealousy, moved 
her slender feet slowly to the glow of the burning 
logs. 

“Do you really think we do? Paul is quick to see 
things. Perhaps it is the Keltic strain in the blood of 
us both which we spoke of the other day. Ancient 
habits have no doubt helped. But you will soon under- 
stand him a thousand times better than I.” 

What she considered “ Connie’s ‘ missish ’ beatitude 


CORRUPTIOX. 


135 


about Paul ” irritated her, but she had no intention to 
make her uneasy. 

“ I am afraid you must think me a hard, not to say 
‘gritty,’ woman of the world, Connie. My excuse is 
that there are suspicious signs of crow’s feet in my eyes. 
Look ! ” 

“ There isn’t a sign ! ” 

“No? then the crow’s feet are in my imagination, 
and manifest themselves in ill-nature. I hope and I 
think you and Paul Carew will be as happy as you 
deserve. I am always a little cynical about marriage. 
I pose as a mondaine and its de rigueur. The man 
whom you love is fortunate, and unless Paul treasures 
his ‘ sweet English rose ’ ” — she got it out without 
wincing — “ as she deserves ” 

But Constance Muir, with a flush of delight on her 
face, spared her the difficulty of finishing. 

“ Did he call me that?” she asked in a voice tremu- 
lous with eager pleasure. 

“ You know he does, and so you are ! But if we sit 
up and gossip your roses won’t bloom and my crow will 
step from my heart to my eyes. Good-night! Tell 
Celestine to bring you chocolate to-morrow, and for- 
swear tea.” 

Then Beatrice pecked Constance daintily on the 
cheek and went to bed, not quite sure that she had kept 
herself well in hand. 

When she was gone, Constance Muir opened the 
window and looked into the garden. She could hear 
the breeze rustling the boughs of the great cedar tree 


136 


CORRUPTION. 


on the lawn. The stars were shining, and the hills 
merged in the shadows of the night. But after a few 
moments the vastness of the dark and the complete 
fusion between the earth and sky oppressed her, and 
she closed the window ; then, having prayed — just as 
she had learnt to pray in the nursery, kneeling by the 
bedside, a pretty girlish figure in a soft white gown 
under the fitful gleam of the fire — for her dear Paul 
and for “ power to be worthy of him,” she got into bed 
to lie awake and review the day. 

There was a cloud in the serenity of her sky, grown 
out of the impalpable doubts. How was it she could 
never think of Paul without thinking of Beatrice? 
Could she be quite sure that he had never felt for 
her anything stronger than friendship? One thought, 
however, afforded her almost complete comfort. Paiil 
would not marry her unless he loved her. This kept 
the cloud small and grey, and prevented it from grow- 
ing big and black. 

Then, unable to sleep, she opened her door. Prom 
Carew’s room at the other end of the corridor she saw 
the light shining under the door. Evidently he was 
awake too. 

She pictured him wndting at his table engaged in 
some vaguely vast intellectual problem. But he was 
endeavouring to forget the agitations of the day in the 
morbid psychology of Paul Bourget’s Le Disciple. 

But the sense of Carew’s proximity and wakefulness 
soothed her, and she fell asleep in a state of bliss, 
convinced she was going to marry the best, cleverest, 


CORRUPTION. 


137 


and most famous man in England, who could not pass 
through a crowed unless some one turned and said, 
“ That’s Paul Carew ! ” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

A night’s sleep restored Beatrice Mannering’s 
philosophy of life to its usual activity. 

“ The ‘ fiend- voices- that-rave ’ mood,” she said to 
Carew, “ has departed.” 

“ I am glad of that,” he said, “ for they prevented 
me from sleeping last night, and drove me to Le 
Disciple as a sedative.” 

They were alone in the window recess of the break- 
fast room watching Mannering in the garden talking to 
a gardener. Constance Muir had not yet come down, 
and the hand of the clock was on the point of nine. 

“ It is an awful book,” said Beatrice. 

“ But a dismally fascinating one,” he answered. “ I 
confess to some sympathy with the neurotic pessimist 
who is the hero. He w^as the victim of the disease of 
the age from which we all suffer. Directly a man is 
convinced of his own insignificance in this lath and 
plaster civilisation, and flies to science and sociology 
for comfort, he begins to take even his love as a 
problem.” 

“Yes,” answered she, “and becomes half an ogre 
and all a priggish villain in consequence. Do away 


138 


CORRUPTION. 


with ‘ the fear of God,’ as the rector calls it, and the 
oo:res run out of all dim corners unmuzzled. Some 
day civilisation will be compelled to shoot them, or 
better still, to make philosophers take out licences, 
when only the virtuous need apply. But ‘hang up 
philosophy.’ See how the trees are bursting! You 
can hear the lambs on the hills from here.” 

She pushed open the window and inhaled the soft 
air with delight. 

“ Most perfect pagan,” he said admiringly, “ you 
have learned to love the world.” 

“ Hullo, Beattie 1 ” shouted Mannering from the 
lawn, “ isn’t it a ripping morning ? Come out ! ” 

They stepped on the lawn. The young day was de- 
lightful. Over the hill-tops across the sky drifted the 
fleecy clouds. The warm spring sun stirred Nature to 
her heart, under her caresses all her children were glad ; 
the young blossoms on the boughs, the bleating wean- 
lings on the hills, the rooks in the elms, the thrushes 
in the lilac bushes, and Beatrice in the rich beauty of 
her womanhood and the unrestricted paganism of her 
creed. 

“ Fools only half live,” she whispered to Carew. 

Then Mannering explained a new plan for altering 
the flower beds. He was for ever scheming changes 
which his wife resisted. 

“ Look here, Beattie,” he said, “ don’t you think 
this bed spoils the symmetry of the lawn ? ” 

It was the bed where the offending tulips had been 
planted. 


CORRUPTION. 


139 


“ No ; and if it does spoil it, I don’t like symmetry.” 

“ But there isn’t one to match at that side. It was 
put in when I was a little boy. Originally there was a 
cedar tree there — the fellow to that one yonder, but it 
was struck by lightning one night and killed, and the 
bed was laid out to cover the scar left in the lawn. 
But I should like it returfed and wiped out.” 

“ Certainly not, Gerald,” she said. “ There is no 
romance about you. The bed is a monument to the 
thunder-stricken tree. Flowers have bloomed there for 
at least twenty years, and shall bloom there for a hun- 
dred more unless an angry and hungry democracy led 
by Paul Carew disinherit us, and let us out in allot- 
ments. I won’t have the bed altered — so there ! ” 

Mannering loved to hear his wife assert herself. 

“ All right, Beattie,” he said, “ it shan’t be touched. 
But isn’t she tyrant?” 

“ Quite an ogress,” answered Carew. 

“ Because you are obedient, we will fetch you a 
flower. Come, Paul.” 

Carew accompanied her to a conservatory where the 
roses, red, yellow, and wdiite, were blooming in banks. 
An early bee was buzzing amongst them, and the air 
was heavy with their scent. 

“ How divinely they smell ! ” she said. 

“ You shall have one, Paul, too.” 

“ Thank you ! Make no distinctions.” 

“Don’t sneer. You will make the roses fade. 
There ! here is a lovely one — as red as ‘ uttermost 
shame’ — for you to wear. Gerald shall have a white 


140 


CORRUPTION. 


one, and you shall give this pale pink one to Connie, 
and then she won’t be jealous. For jealous she can be, 
and will be, unless our Paul is cautious.” 

She fixed the fiower in the button-hole of his grey 
morning coat, and, as she did so, her soft hair brushed 
his face. When she raised her face he kissed her, and 
brought the colour more deeply to her face. 

“ Thank you, beautiful Beatrice.” 

She stepped quickly back from his arms, and they 
walked to the house. 

Constance Muir was descending the stairs as they 
entered the hall together. 

“ Good morning, Connie, dear ! We come fresh 
from Eden, and here is your Adam with a pink and 
white rose for his Eve.” 

“How pretty!” exclaimed Constance happily, as he 
handed it to her. She placed it in the bosom of her 
fawn-coloured dress. 

Beatrice’s quick eye detected the girl’s glance at the 
red blossom in Carew’s coat. 

“ You see he kept the prettiest one for you,” she 
said. “ This one is for Monsieur mon Mari. Come, 
sir, and let me put it in your coat.” 

Then they breakfasted with the wdndows open, whilst 
the happy birds sang in the sunny garden. 

“What shall we do to amuse you, Carew?” asked 
Mannering. 

“ Miss Muir and I have come into Arcadia with con- 
tent in our hearts.” 

“ To live is enough amusement in such weather,” 


CORRUPTION. 


141 


said Beatrice. “ Thank you for ‘ Arcadia,’ though. 
Connie would make an ideal shepherdess, and you would 
become ribbons and a crook.” 

“ I can’t fancy Paul in a fancy dress,” said the prac- 
tical Constance. 

“Unless it is the Speaker’s wig — no more can I,” 
said Beatrice. 

“ Talking of shepherdesses. Miss Muir,” said Man- 
nering, “ that reminds me. We have seventy-seven 
lambs in the park. Yesterday there were eighty, but 
the fox that has his run somewhere up behind the 
Waterloo King came down and killed three last night.” 

“ Gerald, you must shoot that fox,” said his wife. 
“ You never shoot anything that deserves it.” 

“ I am god-father to all the foxes in this neighbour- 
hood,” said her husband, laughing. “ But I have writ- 
ten to the master of the hounds. They will meet here 
next week.” 

“ They will kill the wrong one as usual. The lamb- 
slayer invariably escapes,” answered Beatrice. 

“ I should like to see the lambs,” said Constance. 

“ So you shall, after breakfast,” said Mannering. 
“ You don’t mind loafing, Carew?” 

“ Nature intended me for a vagabond,” said Carew, 
“ but accident made me a politician.” 

“ Fancy Paul a tramp ! ” said Constance. 

“ I can’t,” replied Beatrice, “ unless as the leader of 
a revolt for their enfranchisement. In any rank of life 
he would be a worry.” 

“ Or a mart}^,” suggested Carew. 


142 


CORRUPTION. 


“ There are none now of your sex. We are the mar- 
tyrs — Connie and I and the rest of us. The foxes that 
abide in the holes of the hills come and nip our white 
necks, and are never punished.” 

“Your wife is always riding on the backs of her 
parables,” said Carew to Mannering. “ Can you inter- 
jiret this one? ” 

“ Not I,” said he, “ but I should think you might.” 

“ ‘ Davus sum non (Edipus^ ” returned Carew. 

“ How rude to quote Latin, Paul ! ” said Constance 
Muir. 

“He understands me well enough,” said Beatrice. 
“The policy of the -Pharisee and the sinner is alwa3’s 
the same. He flees before the allegories of the good 
and the just. But when Gerald has eaten all the mar- 
malade, and finished the toast-rack, we’ll to the 
lambs. Put on thick boots, Connie, for the grass is 
damp.” 

She followed Constance Muir out of the room, who 
was a little overwhelmed by her easy chatter. 

“ Beatrice is in wonderful spirits to-day. The sun- 
shine always seems to make her happy,” said Manner- 
ing, when they were gone. “ There is always some- 
thing true in her chaff, though. Women do manage 
to get pretty considerably ‘ nipped,’ one way or the 
other, in this world. On the whole, we have the best 
of it.” 

“ I think, on the whole, you wdll find they are fairly 
well satisfied with the state of life to which it has 
pleased God to call them,” answered Carew. 


CORRUPTION. 


143 

But he knew well enough who was the lamb of 
Beatrice’s fable. 

In the evening the weather changed, temperature 
and barometer falling as though conspiring to throttle 
the spring. A cold, grey rain lashed the country side. 
The Waterloo Ring was blotted out by the driving mists. 
Even the thrushes ceased to sing. Sunday came, and 
still the wind blew and the rain fell. 

“ You must all come to church and hear me play the 
organ,” said Beatrice. 

It was too wet to go on foot, so they drove there in a 
big closed landau. 

“ You don’t know me in my character of a pillar of 
the church,” Beatrice whispered to Carew. “ There are 
the makings of a saint in me yet.” 

Elcourt Church grew out of the landscape as though 
planted there by nature, and without the aid of the 
human architect. The Mannerings had left their mark 
there. The white walls were studded with the tablets 
of the family. Here an urn, with the weeping angels of 
the Georgian period, recorded that a great-uncle of the 
present squire had fallen at Quatre Bras ; there a tablet, 
and the stained glass window above it, commemorated 
the death of the present squire’s infant sister, “ aged five 
3^ears.” The ancestral monuments under the chipped 
stones filled the present owner of Elcourt with solemn 
pride. Sometimes, as he sat in his big pew alone, and 
his wife in the organ-loft played some pathetic melody 
of Beethoven’s whilst the vicar donned his surplice in 

the crypt-like vestry, the chords crept into his kind 
10 


144 


CORRUPTION. 


heart, and it occurred to him how horrible it would bo 
to read there on the white walls, beside his father’s 
escutcheon, the legend : “ Sacred to the memory of 
Beatrice Mannering, the beloved wife of Gerald Man- 
nering, Esq., J. p., m. p.” Then he used to try to follow 
the service carefully, and not to think of his new hunter, 
or the poaching shoemaker who lived in one of his cot- 
tages and sold his pheasants to the London poulterer 
whilst he refused to pay his rent. 

The quiet of the old church, too big by far for the 
scanty congregation, touched the cold agnosticism of 
Oarew. Carew had often heard Beatrice play the organ 
in her father’s church. To hear her to-day was to renew 
a half-forsrotten emotion. 

She selected a flowing melody of Eossini, which he 
had heard her play years ago in his holidays when she 
was a schoolgirl at Bath, he a clever lad in the sixth 
form at Eugby. 

lie could read the message she sent him. 

Beatrice was playing at him, Constance Muir at his 
side was secretly praying for him, around him on the 
walls hung the dusty memorials of other Mannerings, 
gentlemen, honest and simple, with dim intellects and 
an indefinable faith that “ there must be something in 
what the parsoh had been taught to say.” 

The rector of Elcourt was a churchman who be- 
lieved in the efficacy of his own peculiar brand of 
“ bright and attractive services ” for “ winning souls.” 
Souls in his handling became rather solid entities. 
He made the most of harvest festivals and Easter Sun- 


COPtRUPTION. 


145 


clays, and had a wholesome contempt for Dissenters. 
At best, he thought them only fit for quite a second- 
class heaven, and was thus enabled to interpret “in 
My Father’s house there are many mansions ” for his 
secret comfort. He had been a schoolmaster, and the 
pedagogue still clung to his manners, and came out 
that day in his sermon, which was a recliauffee of one 
he had preached in his schoolcha^pel when his favourite 
pupil won a Baliol scholarship. It was on the “ Ee- 
sponsibilities of Success,” and Carew perceived with 
amusement that it was a shot at him. 

From her seat behind the choir at the organ, 
Beatrice gave him a glance. The humour of the situ- 
ation pleased her. 

The rector had explained when he was lunching at 
the Mannerings that “ his political views were diamet- 
rically opposed to those which Mr. Carew supported 
with so much eloquence in the House of Commons and 
in the country.” 

From great men he told them great things were 
always expected. He deplored David’s deviations from 
honour and explained how “ the weakness of his flesh ” 
had lowered *the dignity of his character. He poured 
platitudes, like water, over his congregation, and en- 
joyed the bath he gave them exceedingly. 

“ I am thrown av/ay on these people,” thought the 
cleric. The vanity of the parson and the ex-school- 
master easily persuaded the preacher that he had 
favourably impressed “ the most brilliant of our younger 
statesmen ” as the friendly provincial leader-writers 


146 


CORRUPTION. 


called Carew Avlien they sought an alternative phrase to 
escape the repetition of his name. 

“ What did you think of the sermon ? ” Beatrice 
asked Carew maliciously, as they drove home through 
wet lanes. 

“ The preacher deserved to be called to order for 
wandering from the point ; otherwise I Tvas edified. 
He might have left out the reference to Hero, who was 
not a success, and made a few more excuses for David, 
who was a poet, and deserves all the latitude modern 
critics grant Shelley.” 

“ You would have made an excellent preacher if you 
had gone into the Church, Paul,” exclaimed Constance 
Muir, who would have admired him still more as life 
guardsman. 

“ Paul’s star would have been equally brilliant as a 
curate or a bishop,” said Beatrice. 

“ Curates are not such bad sportsman as you fancy, 
Beatrice,” said Mannering. “ When I was up at Cam- 
bridge two men wdio w^ere in the eleven came out as 
curates.” 

“ Cricket is a great supporter of the Establishment,” 
said Carew. “ Directly a man gets his cricket ‘ blue,’ 
the whole of his undergraduate horizon is baited with 
masterships, and thence with bishoprics. We like what 
we facetiously call the ‘ higher education ’ to have an 
ecclesiastical bias, so the cricketer becomes a curate. 
One argument against disendowmient, and I recommend 
it to you, Mannering, is the collateral damage it would 
inflict on the national sport.” 


CORRUPTION. 


147 


“ I admit that if I had a son I should prefer him 
to be taught by a parson,” said Mannering thought- 
fully. 

“ In morals as in music,” said his wife, “ one always 
prefers the professional to the amateur.” 

“ A most excellent plea against lay masterships,” 
said Carew laughing. 

“ At my school, a dear old clergyman taught us 
Latin,” said Constance. “ He had been at Oxford, and 
came three times a week.” 

“ Gerald has learnt Latin too,” said Beatrice. “ I 
never did. It was considered too demoralising for me. 
But here we are at last. I always feel like a grand- 
mama in the landau. The ancestral vehicle is only 
brought out on wet Sabbaths. You must understand 
that w^e are all serious on Sundays. We alv/ays make 
lunch a heavy meal. I at least understand my respon- 
sibilities, if Paul doesn’t. JSTo temptations are offered 
here on Sunday to luxurious London guests, but only 
austere baked meats and severe rhubarb tart. The 
demoralising made-dish is banished until the week day. 
Connie, I hope you - can eat roast beef at half-past 
one ! ” 

“ 0 Beatrice ! you are quite the most luxurious 
w'oman I know,” said Constance. “ You admitted it 
last*night.” 

“But an admission from me counts for nothing, 
doesn’t it, Gerald? But don’t change your dress for 
lunch, Connie ; Paul won’t mind.” 

“ She gambols after ideas like a kitten after a ball, 


148 


CORRUPTION. 


doesn’t slie ? ” said Mannering, glancing proudly after 
his wife as she mounted the stairs. 

“ Yes,” said Carew, “ she does gamble.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

The morning’s post had brought Carew a letter 
from Wilson, the editor of the Cornet^ who was a 
Scotchman with a taste for mischief, a fear of re- 
sponsibility, and a lust for original cross-headings. 

The leader of the Opposition, ridiculing the position 
of the Government in a speech to his constituents, had 
referred to the Carewites as “ the rotten crutch which 
supported the stumbling steps of the lamest of modern 
administrations.” When Stephen Muir, its proprietor, 
had given him the appointment, he had said, “ Look 
here, Mr. Wilson, whenever you are in doubt as to 
v/hat policy you should adopt, write to Mr. Carew for 
instructions.” 

Wilson was often in doubt, he was in doubt now, so 
after lunch Carew retired into the big library to forge 
and barb arrows for the journalist to shoot. 

“I will take care you are not disturbed,” said the 
friendly Mannering. It has left off raining, so I will 
take the ladies for a stroll round the stables.” 

The library was sombre and peaceful. The boughs 
of the cedar, even on bright days, threw a faint blue 
twilight over that angle of the house. The bow win- 


CORRUPTION. 


149 


dows, with diamond panes, looked up the slope to the 
wooded bases of the hills. It was a place to read the 
hooks of the last century, not to meditate political 
polemics. Carew heard the crackling of the logs on 
the hearth and the drops sliding from the cedar tree 
to the earth, brown with its wmrn-out foliage — and 
watched the grey landscape through the shadow of 
the trees. 

After all, it mattered little what the Comet said, or 
w'hat the Opposition critics said, or what any one said. 
“ We overrate the influence of noise and bustle,” he 
thought. “ What is shouted on the housetop on Mon- 
day is mocked in the kitchen on Tuesday.” 

So, instead of writing to Wilson, he became absorbed 
in his own thoughts. For a successful man, he did not 
feel very happy. Some men derive from drugs or alco- 
hol a satisfaction rather similar to the acrid and morbid 
pleasure he got from his life. 

A shorn and shaggy group of Highland cattle 
moved slowly from a clump of green-fringed trees and 
looked over the stone parapet at the end of the garden. 
The leader lowed, as though he were weary of the dull 
day. The beasts’ coats shone redly in the grey damp- 
ness of the air. 

In a few moments, Mannering and Constance Muir 
moved into the area of his vision. 

Mannering’s fox-terrier ran through the stone pali- 
sades and barked at the heels of the solemn herd, which 
rolled round petulantly, with lowered horns. Carew 
thought Constance very pretty and graceful in her 


X50 CORRUPTION. 

cloak trimmed with astrakhan and the tufted hussar 
cap that matched it. 

Just as they were lost to view, Beatrice quietly 
entered the library. 

“ I want to speak to you,” she said. “ The others 
have gone on a Sunday-afternoon stock-inspecting ex- 
pedition. They are capital friends. A limited sense 
of humour, and a complete trust in the general good- 
ness of the rest of the world, are amongst the many 
excellent qualities they share in common.” 

She sat facing him on the cushioned ledge of the 
window recess, the light from a watery gleam in the 
western sky passing through her hair. 

“ Is it not better,” he said, “ to let things happen 
and not talk about them ? Yv"hat we intend makes very 
little difference.” 

“ There are such things as promises,” she replied. 
“ You have always kept yours to me. Will your mar- 
riage change our lives?” 

“ I suppose it must make some sort of change.” 

“ Will it make you forget what you owe me? ” 

“No; nothing could.” 

“ It is easy to say that in cold blood, but will you 
stand between me and the stones. You understand 
what I mean ? ” 

“ Yes ; but there will be no stones.” 

“ I am terribly frightened sometimes in the ‘ dead 
middle of the night,’ when the black things troop out 
of the corners of my conscience and stand round my 
bed. You are a pagan, Paul, a picturesque one enough, 


CORRUPTION. 


151 


but still your paganism is complete. You tliink men 
and women are ridiculous parasites, clinging to a 
whirling atom in space, vainly comforting themselves 
with ingenious superstitions for the insignificance they 
all secretly feel. Your creed seems to be ‘ let us make 
the best of our temptations.’ But I wear my material- 
ism with a difference. You never think any sacrifice 
which the others pay greatly matters in the sum total 
of right and wrong. But I can’t suffer pain myself or 
see others suffer without misgivings. Do you believe 
that it is a law in the moral world that the ‘ evil-doer 
must suffer?’ Once you told me it was.” 

“Did I? Well, I am more experienced now. I am 
not sure that the maxim was not invented by the Greek 
dramatists to suit the exigencies of their craft. I don’t 
know — except in the crudest way — what the moral law 
is. You and I balance the wrong we do in one way, by 
the right way we try to do in another ; or, if we don’t, 
we can imagine we do. The comfort of it is the same. 
The lives of most people — especially of the intelligent — 
are a compromise. There are days when our con- 
sciences set us stocktaking, and then the ‘ black 
things,’ as you call them, come and dance round our 
beds. It is merely a form of mental dyspepsia. We 
are all of us the victims of circumstance, and cut off by 
an impassable gulf from knowing what others think and 
feel, so that we can never properly fix the balance of 
right and wrong, never be quite sure, in the cant 
phrase, whether we are more sinned against than sin- 
ning.” 


152 


CORRUPTION. 


“ But do you never feel, Paul, that you are bearing 
a burden and shame and disaster into an unexplored 
future?” 

“ The burden needn’t crush us, since we must carry 
it between us. But don’t look so miserable, Circe ; for 
you are Circe, and dwell in a lovely and mysterious 
garden, where no one but myself has ever entered. If 
the avalanche ever comes we can go there, shut the 
gates, and escape the stones and the curses that might 
be flung outside.” 

And then the breeze, suddenly stirring, moaned in 
the branches of the cedar. 

“ ‘ Hark to the wind and its infinite wail,’ ” said 
she, listening wistfully. 

“ That is the only reproach you need ever hear, 
Beatrice,” he said. 

He stood leaning against the writing-table watching 
her. 

“ But do you never feel the burden of responsibility, 
in some such way as the old rector j)rosed about this 
morning ? ” 

“ You can’t make a life like mine a simple thing of 
what you ought to feel and what you ought not. My 
first responsibility is to myself, which means to you. 
We are all, more or less, birds of prey, Beatrice,” he 
said smiling, “ and we trim our responsibilities so as 
not to unduly hamper the play of beak and claws. 
But why worry yourself about all these things now 
when we settled them at Portradock last September. 
Let us make what we can of life, fearing nothing and 


CORRUPTION. 


153 


taking all. Our friendship is as necessary to us as the 
'rain and dew to the ring of trees yonder.” 

“ Some of them are dying, Paul. Their roots have 
struck the chalk, and their da3^s are numbered.” 

“ But they have taken rain and sun happily enough 
for more than fifty years. Like us, they had no choice 
in their planting. There is no chalk or rock in our 
heart.” 

“ None in yours, Paul ? One part of it is ice and 
granite. When I knock against it, as I do sometimes, 
my own shivers.” 

“We must harden our hearts to the world. The 
very fight a man like myself makes produces a process 
of ossification. Mine is soft enough, tender enough, 
weak enough in all that concerns you.” 

“ I believe it is,” she said. “ But then — but 
then ” 

“ But seek no further,” he said. “ Our excuse is the 
eternal excuse of humanity and nature. Passion is 
stronger than law, stronger than society, but if you 
watch the workings of the forces on which we ride 
you will only grow bewildered and giddy. Peace, 
Circe ; forget, Circe ; but don’t call in Diana and 
Minerva to sit in judgment.” 

And now their faces were close together and their 
hands clasped. 

“ When you want comfort, come to me,” he said, 
smiling into her troubled face. “We are in a little 
boat far out on a dangerous sea,” he went on, soothed 
under the long glance of her beautiful eyes, “ but we 


154 


CORRUPTION. 


are a thousand times happier than we should be if we 
sat with the crowd on the dusty shore amongst the 
nigger minstrels and flat-footed excursionists, who 
build little Ebenezers and cheat one another out of 
candle-ends.” 

“ Still we must be afraid of the cross currents and 
the rocks sometimes,” she said, drawing false comfort 
from his face, “ and, whatever happens, you will never 
swim ashore and leave me ignominiously to drown ? ” 

“ Never ! never ! never ! We will make our world 
fit us, not fit ourselves to the world. Your heart and 
my head are far up in the ether above the crowd.” 

“ There is no comfort like vanity,” she said smiling. 

“ None,” he answered, laughing too, “ and it never 
fails.” 

“ But I don’t believe you are really happy,” she said ; 
“ those two ” (Mannering and Constance Muir, who 
were now visible half-way across the park on their 
homeward way) “ are more contented than we are. I 
hope they always will be too. This is the last time I 
will speak to you again before you are married. What 
a tangle the world is — your world and mine ! But 
there — soyons pliilosoplies ! — it is stupid to wander 
round and round in a circle in a moral desert.” 

When her husband approached the garden gate, she 
left Carew in the library, to write the letter he had not 
yet commenced. 

‘‘ I wish to God I had married her eight years ago,” 
he thought, remorsefully. Then he wrote a hurried 
note to Wilson, to tell him to congratulate the Opposi- 


CORRUPTION. 


155 


tion on the possession of a leader without faitli in the 
efficacy of democratic institutions or trust in the effect 
of remedial legislation, without hope in the future or 
achievement in the past, and suggested the “ Doubting 
Peter of Politics ” as a convenient title for an article. 


CHAPTER XX. 

The Wedding March was very far from being ah 
appropriate accompaniment to the feelings with which 
Carew now contemplated his marriage. Whilst his 
acquaintances looked on him as “ the spoilt child of 
fortune,” he regarded his marriage as an important 
part in the profit and loss policy of his life. It would 
enable him to pay debts that, before the public an- 
nouncement of his marriage, had begun to press on 
him heavily, and raise him to the affluence he con- 
sidered necessary to his personal dignity and comfort. 
These substantial benefits he credited to the profit side 
of the mental ledger that he kept. Still, there was a 
loss side. In one way, his marriage represented a draft 
on the future. It refused to serve one purpose he had 
anticipated. He had hoped it would gradually enable 
him to make a safe readjustment of his relations with 
Beatrice Mannering, and to shift them to a footing of 
platonism. It had only shown him his exceeding weak- 
ness in all that concerned her. Her fascination over 
him was growing stronger, and he no longer possessed 


156 


CORHUPTION. 


either the will or power to resist it. There was only 
one promise Carew was determined to keep, and that 
w^as the one he had made to Beatrice. Just as the 
victim of dypsomania loses taste for wholesome food, so 
the habitually wicked man in time grows to despise the 
simple honesty of conduct which we call goodness. 

Xo one could read the motives of devious and un- 
trustworthy people more skilfully than Carew, yet he 
was liable to misinterpret every-day acts of ordinary 
uprightness, that implied a sacrifice of self-interest. He 
frequently miscalculated, because he forgot to allow a 
wide enough margin for goodness. But, although the 
“ tooth and nail ” theory had served him well, he was 
not narrow enough to apply it to the solutions of all 
problems. He had a different measure for women. For 
Constance Muir he entertained a sort of affectionate 
contempt. She trusted him so implicitly, believed so 
fully in his genius and nobility of purpose in politics, 
that when his vanity was satiated with this unreasoning 
respect, he was compelled to discover in it a strong in- 
fusion of that ridiculous element on which, it seemed to 
him, the affairs of men generally floated. The con- 
sciousness that Beatrice Mannering was secretly laugh- 
ing galled him. However, he permitted himself to be 
loved with so subtle a condescension, that no one but 
Beatrice perceived the dismal cynicism of the situation. 
To the rest of the world he seemed a gallant and chival- 
rous lover — a type of dignified manhood and social ease. 
His self-control was perfect, his tact unfailing. The 
Muirs were delighted with their future son-in-law. 


CORRUPTION. 


157 


Oa tlie eve of liis marriage, Carew found that the 
sources of raising money which had been almost closed 
against him reopened. His credit blossomed and bore 
fruit under the golden sunshine of a millionaire’s daugh- 
ter, with a hundred thousand pounds for a dowry, and 
the prospects of half a share in Muir’s colossal fortune. 
With the money he raised, he paid off all troublesome 
claims against himself, and sent a cheque to his future 
father-in-law for the thousand pounds he had borrowed 
two years before. 

Muir came round to his chambers with the cheque 
in his pocket. 

“My dear Carew,” he said, “don’t you think we 
might forget this little matter — under the circumstances, 
I mean?” 

“ I would rather square up accounts now, if you 
don’t mind,” said Carew, “ and I’m sure j^ou will under- 
stand the feeling that prompted me. In any case, I 
had made arrangement to repay you the loan about this 
time.” 

Muir was pleased in one v/ay but annoyed in an- 
other. As a successful business man he had fancied 
Carew regarded the loan as a return for the political 
support he had afforded him. In this case the price 
was, he thought, excessive. On the other hand, he felt 
a secret pride in knowing that the brilliant young poli- 
tician who owed him a thousand pounds which he was 
unable to pay was to that extent dependent on him. 

“ But are you sure you are not inconveniencing your- 
self, my dear boy ? ” said Muir. 


158 


CORRUPTION. 


Carew hated to be “ dear boyed,” but he only smiled 
and said — 

“ Not in the least. A debt’s a debt and a loan’s a 
loan. If I had borrowed the money of my own father I 
should have repaid him. I am under too many obliga- 
tions to you.” 

“ I can’t admit it has ever been a question of obliga- 
tions between us,” said Muir, “ but in any case I w^on’t 
annoy you further. We will consider the incident 
closed.” 

If he had dared he would have said : ‘‘ This is rather 
a foolish transaction. After all, you are paying me back 
with my own money.” 

When Muir was gone, Carew went to the jewellers, 
and purchased a magnificent tiara of diamonds for his 
gift to Constance. 

“ I will give you a cheque for these at once,” he said. 
“ But you must let the other trifles stand over for the 
present.” 

Amongst them v^as the pendant he had given Bea- 
trice Mannering. 

Constance Muir, who at that time was living under 
a lavish shower of precious stones, was overwhelmed 
with delight at the pretty, sparkling crown for her girl- 
ish head. The gift stirred her to the depth of her 
affectionate nature. It became a live thing under the 
electric light of her room. The prisms caught the rays, 
and shot them back in a quivering stream that dived 
from her eyes to her heart. It seemed a fitting symbol 
of his “ princely generosity.” She built a secret shrine 


CORRUPTION. 


159 


for her tiara in her fancy, remote from all her other 
presents. “ You are too good to me,” she wrote, “ too 
kind to me ! I cannot say what I feel, but only thank 
you, dear Paul, with all my heart. Your diamonds send 
me myriads of happy smiles as they bask like clear and 
kind thoughts in the light, and bring me a sweet mes- 
sage from you every time their glitter holds my eye.” 

Her simple joy pleased Carew. All his life he had 
endured resentfully the want of ready money, and re- 
coiled at the irksome task of an economy that always 
baffled his lavish propensities. It was a comfort to 
feel that he had £2000 to his credit on his marriage 
morning. The genial glow of coming prosperity was a 
novel sensation. 

The wedding, which took place in the last week of 
April at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, sent a ripple of 
expectation and curiosity through the whole West End 
of London. The social columns of the papers, es- 
pecially those in which the lady writer had a chance of 
showing her hand, were saturated with the “ imposing 
function.” There was a fashionable dean to read the 
service, assisted by the dignitary who had “prepared 
Miss Muir for confirmation,” and who, the reporters 
said, “ had been personally requested by the bride to 
assist.” 

There was, according to the Society papers, “a gen- 
eral feeling that the marriage should have taken place in 
the Abbey itself, but, although it was well known that 
the dean desired it, the idea was abandoned because 

both the bride and the bridegroom, with characteristic 
11 


160 


CORRUPTION. 


modesty, shrank from the excessive publicitj that this 
would have entailed.” 

Fanshawe, a prominent supporter of the Govern- 
ment, and a possible rival for office in Greville’s next 
Ministry, was Carew’s best man. Meanwhile, on her 
wedding day Constance Muir was in a tremour of de- 
lightful excitement and becoming nervousness. Carew 
had dragged her, it seemed, into a white light of pub- 
licity that half frightened but wholly gratified her. A 
few months before she had been a pretty little girl fresh 
from the hands of “ finishing governesses ” ; to-day she 
was the object of the unblushing curiosity of a mob of 
women. As she walked on her father’s arm down the 
aisle of the church, her tender heart bumped turbulently 
under the white laces of her dress. She seemed drifting 
on a stream of orange blossom, golden minutes, and 
music toward a blissful haven where she was to worship 
Paul, and he in his splendid calm manner, so unlike 
that of the other men she knew, was to love her for ever 
and ever. Time seemed to stop in a tremulous eddy of 
emotion. Her colour went and came; the staring eyes 
of the crowd lay like a weight on her shoulders, or was 
it the long train, sweeping the pavement behind her, 
that she felt ? She could not tell. 

“ Don’t be nervous, my dear,” said her father, when 
she clutched his arm. Soon she saw “ her dear Paul ” 
waiting at the altar, serene, calm, and untroubled, and 
she felt a sense of peace and restfulness stealing over her. 
Under his clear-eyed calm, she forgot the hundreds of 
inquisitive glances that had pursued her down the 


CORRUPTION. 


IGl 


church. His profile, straight and strong in the quiet 
light from the stained-glass window, compared splen- 
didly with the legal complacency of Fanshawe’s face. 
Then she wondered if Paul had had any lunch, and re- 
membered how her mother had desired her to eat a 
cutlet at half -past twelve, and how difficult it had been 
to swallow, and felt ashamed at the incongruity of the 
thought. Paul greeted her with a smile — did ever man 
have so winning and kind a smile! How they knelt 
down side by side on the red cushions; she heard the 
pompous dean reading familiar words that suddenly 
had acquired a new intensity of meaning. Indefinable 
rustlings and murmurings floated across the church and 
into it from the crowded street. But she could not 
focus her w^andering thoughts on prayer — they were 
too full of pride and joy for that. Still she shut her 
eyes and tried hard to pray. “ God, please forgive me 
for feeling like this,” was the only form her aspirations 
took. A red light seemed filtering through the lids. 
Carew’s untroubled response thrilled her frame. “ I am 
his wdfe at last,” she thought, “please God make me 
wmrthy of him.” Her own meek voice seemed to fill 
the church, and she recalled how once when she had 
taken protoxide of nitrogen at the dentist’s it exercised 
a similar weird effect on her own ears. Before her 
wonder had gone, she felt her hand in Paul’s. How 
the ring was on her finger. “ With this ring I thee 
wed.” She was Mrs. Paul Carew ! She could not join 
in the short prayer because the circulation of her own 
blood seemed to fill the place with sound. Thirty 


162 


CORRUPTIOX. 


seconds more, and slie felfc lier mother kissing her in a 
little dark room, where there was something to write in 
a big book, and heard her brother saying, “ You went 
through it like a brick, Connie ! ” 

Young Eliot, who had come with him from Aider- 
shot, shook hands with her and said, “ I congratulate 
you very heartily, Mrs, Carew, and hope you will be 
very, very happy.” 

She had not seen him since the day he wanted to 
marry her himself. 

“ Thank you very much,” she said sweetly. 

The lad’s face clearly showed that he took no de- 
light in her marriage, and she was glad of it 

“ You seem accustomed to your new name already,” 
lie added. 

Then her brother introduced him to Carew. 

“ I think you are the luckiest man on earth,” she 
heard him say. “ I have known your wife all her life ; 
there isn’t any one like her.” 

But she only thought he was a dear, brave soldier 
boy, and wondered how it was that he looked older 
and manlier than on the winter’s day when she had 
seen his eyes full of tears in the drawing-room at 
home. 

Of all her congratulations, his touched her most. 

This time on her husband’s arm, she walked proudly 
and fearlessly down the aisle. All the faces were smil- 
ing and full of kindness now. She recognised friends 
and acquaintances, and bowed to them with a pretty 
virginal grace, which went chaimiingly with the sweep- 


CORRUPTION. 


163 

ing lines of her beautiful wedding-dress and the billowy 
veil. 

Driving to her father’s house, she w^ept. “ Cry- 
ing, Connie? Why?” asked Carew, as though he had 
rather expected it. 

“ Paul, it’s from sheer happiness,” she said. “ You 
might have married any one, and you married me.” 

“ I am very glad you are happy,” he said, “ and 
trust that I shall always be able to make you so.” 

“ Of course you will ! The world seems quite a 
dilferent place now, Paul. The streets look so friendly, 
and I never saw the young green in the Park brighter.” 

“ It is a fine spring day,” he said, watching the 
crowd, curious to see whether he was recognised. 

Flower-girls looked up at the brilliant carriage and 
the white-bouqueted bride with the pink spots on her 
cheeks, and smiled ; the policeman eased otf the traffic 
sympathetically to let it pass; the indifferent faces of 
the passers-by lit up for a moment as they beheld it ; 
a scent of flowers and a sense of luxury and high-placed 
happiness followed it through the crowd like an invis- 
ible furrow. At the corner of Hamilton Place, where a 
brief block in the traffic delayed them, a man in the 
crowd, recognising Carew, raised a cheer; the nonde- 
script stream of people on the pavement looked in on 
them with kindly faces. 

“ It is almost as though I were a princess,” thought 
the girl. Her pride was the pride of a pretty, soft bird 
expanding its wings. 

“ I wonder v/hy the Mannerings were not at 


164 


CORRUPTION. 


church,” said Carew as they drove o2 again, with the 
sound of the shout of greeting still in their ears. 

“ Beatrice telegraphed to me to say they could not 
be in time for the service, but that they would come to 
the reception before the crowd arrived.” 

“ I don’t think I can quite endure the ridiculous 
sight of your nuptials, Paul,” she had said to him. 
“ To come would be to encourage a morbid taste for 
melodrama, and I banish all false sentiments.” 

The Muirs’ reception was magnificent. The princely 
house and the marble staircase stretched itself to wel- 
come the bride and bridegroom. They stood alone 
among the palms and ferns, and the povrdered footmen, 
the first to arrive from Westminster. 

Constance ran up to her room to be alone for a 
moment, and to disentangle the chains of her delight. 
Now she was Mrs. Carew, it seemed a mysterious 
change must have taken place. She looked for it in 
the mirror, but only found the face of a pretty girl, 
whom a bridal veil certainly became. “ I suppose it 
was because I’m pretty that Paul married me,” she 
thought, with a happy smile in her pure eyes, for 
she knew of no other reason. She had alw^ays heard 
that brides, however happy, felt some misgivings on 
the wedding-day. Now the service was over she felt 
none. 

Her mother bustled into the room in matronly satis- 
faction. 

“Everything went oR splendidly, my dear,” she said, 
“and they all thought you looked sweet. The dean 


CORRUPTION. 


165 


read the service charmiugly. But come downstairs; 
Paul is waiting, and people are beginning to arrive.” 

The slim daughter and stately matron walked to- 
gether down the wide stairs, and hundreds of roses sent 
up a stream of fragrance to greet them. 

When she entered the drawing-room she saw her 
husband talking to Beatrice Manncring, superb in her 
beauty and charming spring draperies. 

“ My congratulations, Connie,” she said. “ The 
Vvdiole world is singing a ‘ chorus hymeneal ’ to-day ! 
You endured the dangers of the w'edding service with- 
out blenching, and said the responses without the 
brandished smelling-salts. And what a lovely bouquet, 
it is almost worth while marrying again for the joy of 
carrying it I ” 

“ You may choose any llov/er you like,” said the 
bride, “ because you are Paul’s oldest friend ! ” 

Beatrice smiled. 

“Then,” she replied, “I will take this sprig of 
myrtle. It shall be planted at Elcourt ; and unless my 
prophetic soul deceive me it shall take root and become 
a noble bush. Hereafter, perhaps, your grandchildren 
will see it and say, ‘ that grew from grandma’s bridal 
bouquet.’ ” 

“And I,” said Mannering, who stood behind his 
wife, smiling amiably on the bride, “ will water it my- 
self. But long before it is a decent bush you will be 
wife of a Cabinet Minister, and the whole garden will 
borrow a reflected glory from Mrs. Carew’s myrtle 
bush.” 


1G6 


CORRUPTION. 


“Until the oaks and elms in the park,” said Bea- 
trice, “ dry up with jealousy, which is the most envious 
of all human sentiments, is it not, my wise cousin, 
Paul ? ” 

“ Great trees like great souls are never jealous,” he 
said gravely. And his one hour’s wife thought it a 
noble reproof. 

But the spacious rooms grew crowded with their 
guests. “ Smart ” ladies looked critically at the bride, 
and approved of her superciliously. Women with mar- 
riageable daughters reminded themselves that any girl 
blessed with a millionaire for a father can get married. 
Eobust young women romping on the fringe of half-a- 
dozen “ new ” notions invented by pressmen greedy for 
“ copy,” looked at her disdainfully, and consoled them- 
selves with the idea that she was the sort of person of 
whom “ one was not likely to hear of again.” 

But Constance at the bottom of her crystal well of 
happiness only thought how kind everyone was to her, 
and when the time came to go up to her room for the 
last time, to put on the wonderful travelling-dress, she 
felt half-ashamed that she had not a single tear to shed. 

“ Good-bye, mama, dear. Of course I shall be your 
daughter as much as ever, now I am married.” 

“ Good-bye, papa. I shall never forget your good- 
ness to me.” 

Then, after the usual scrambling, slipper-throwing, 
rice-scattering ceremonial at the door — in which the 
young subalterns from Aldershot were prominent — Mr. 
and Mrs. Paul Carew drove away to spend their honey- 


CORRUPTION. 


167 


moon on tlie Italian lakes. Looking back, the last 
thing they both noticed in the crowd on the wide steps 
was Beatrice Mannering waving the sprig of myrtle. 


CHAPTER XXL 

The Carcws returned from their honeymoon about 
the middle of May, and settled down in their new house. 
London gave them a warm welcome and the world 
generally seemed a kindly, generous place to the bride. 
Paul was a little more reticent, perhaps, than she had 
expected. His long periods of reflective silence were, 
she conjectured, a necessary, if somewhat chilling con- 
dition of a political career at a critical point. Carew 
returned to work to find the Government bent on 
bringing in a liquor bill on which he was convinced 
they must be defeated, both in the House and, in all 
probability, in the country, too. The temperance fanat- 
ics were strong amongst the supporters of the Ministry. 
Greville, who had been afflicted with a brother who fell 
a victim to dypsomania, suffered himself from the “ to- 
tal abstainer bias.” He w^as never weary of tracing 
most of the ills of life to the combined effort of the dis- 
tiller, brewer, and publican. To be Prime Minister in 
the first temperance Government ever called to power 
gratified his ambition. Brought into power on an anti- 
drink wave, he had not been long at the head of affairs 
before he discovered it was far noisier in the constitu- 


16S 


COr.RUPTION. 


encies than numerically powerful. It foamed vigor- 
ously on platforms and in pamphlets, and was organ- 
ised skilfully as a “ promise squeezer ” from parliamen- 
tary candidates. But the very w^ord “ teetotaller ” is 
ridiculous. A perfectly sober-minded person with a clear 
vision for human perspectives needs the very strongest 
inducement to make him accept so absurd a badge. So 
Carew had carefully avoided identifying himself with a 
party from whom he was convinced there was more to 
be lost than gained, so far as he himself was concerned. 
It was chiefly owing to the influence of the Carewites 
that the temperance legislation of the Greville Ministry 
was deferred to the last year of its existence. “ There 
is a point,” Carew had said in a recent speech, “ when 
local government becomes converted into local tyranny. 
The Government which desires to create this tyranny is 
doomed.” 

Every paper in England perceived the application 
of these words. Greville, urged on by the clamours 
of the Prohibitionists, had pledged himself to bring in a 
bill to empower the County Councils by a two-thirds’ 
m.ajority to rescind all licences within the areas under 
their control. The mere shadow of the clauses of this 
measure had arrayed all the powers of darkness, as 
Greville called the liquor interests, against the Govern- 
ment. The bitterness with which the projected bill 
was attacked, long before its introduction in the House 
of Commons, had excited the latent fanaticism of 
Greville now bent on riding for a fall, in the hope that, 
by courting defeat in Parliament in the cause of 


CORRUPTION. 


1G9 


temperance, he might be rescued by its allied forces in 
the constituencies. But Carew knew better. Govern- 
ment after Government had bullied “ the trade,” and he 
was convinced that the natural reaction had set in. So, 
persuaded that his personal influence would be 
strengthened by independent action and dissociation 
from all appearance of bigotry, he told the Prime 
Minister that he should vote against the second reading 
of the Prohibition Bill, greatly to Greville’s annoyance. 

“ The Prime Minister,” Carew said, in a speech to 
his constituents, “ might be a statesman, but he prefers 
to be ‘ temperance reformer,’ which is a very different 
thing.” 

Carew’s views on Prohibition v/ere well known long 
before his marriage. They had, in fact, greatly helped 
to bring about the alliance between Muir and himself. 
“ The Cornet^'* therefore, was ready with a crushing 
retort to the prohibitionist organs which hinted the 
corruptive power of Muir’s money had enticed Carew 
from the noble path of worrying the publicans. 

The first to call on Mrs. Carew was Beatrice 
Mannering. 

“ I do my homage, Connie,” she said, “ before you 
have had time to look round. There will be a rush for 
you this season. Your husband’s speeches are making a 
sensation.” 

“ I don’t quite understand what this Prohibition Bill 
is,” said Mrs. Carew. “It has annoyed papa a good 
deal. He thinks it may interfere with his brewery 
companies. What does Mr. Mannering say of it ? ” 


170 


CORRUPTION. 


“ He is a devoted follower of your husband’s and on 
the side of beer. But did not Paul explain the mean- 
ing of it all to you, Connie ? ” 

“ No. Why should he ? He doesn’t think women 
need bother about these things.” 

“ But he never told you that ? ” 

“ Oh, no. Of course, if I had asked him he would 
have told me all about it. But the truth is I had so 
often heard papa talking of Prohibition that I grew 
quite used to the word without exactly understanding 
its meaning. But I suppose you never do that, 
Beatrice, do you ? ” 

“ Of course I do. There are so many things I never 
understand. I doubt the wisdom of all restraints that 
stop me from doing what I want. ‘ Shalt nots ’ always 
tempt me to ‘ I shalls.’ That is why I sympathise 
with the Prime Minister and his Bill. Gerald tells me 
Mr. Greville’s desire for it has increased at an ‘ inverse 
ratio to its chances of passing.’ That sounds learned, 
doesn’t it? The poor old gentleman hugs Prohibition 
to his bosom, whilst your mischievous Paul urges him 
to be a statesman — to think of the British Empire on 
which the sun never sets, and not to worry Parliament 
to pieces over the licensing of beer shops. Yet there 
are some people who see lax morality in this ? ” 

“ What nonsense ! No one could be more moral 
than Paul, Beatrice. Could they?” 

“ He never tears a virtue to rags, as some of our 
friends do. He will carry you a long way, my dear. 
Some day the peerage will be gaping for you. Paul 


COERUPTION. 171 

might build up the fallen fortunes of his family with 
your help.” 

“ How must I help ? ” 

“ Open your pretty purse strings — that is all.” 

“ Everything we have is put in a ‘ common pool,’ 
as Paul says, and we help ourselves to what we want.” 

“ What a capital plan ! You will be of immense 
service to him, Connie.” 

“ I wish I could be,” Mrs. Carew replied, under the 
flattering impression Beatrice Mannering meant as a 
counsellor. 

“ Yon see, dear, it is very hard for a man of Paul’s 
temperament to be poor, to want things he can’t afford, 
to have his best powers of flight stopped for want of a 
respectable balance at his banker’s. The very rich 
never seem to realise this. When before I was married 
I had to dress on £30 a-year, the trials of existence 
were too much for me. I believe it is worse for a 
man.” 

Beatrice perceived by Connie’s face that the acid 
was beginning to bite. 

“ But I never thought of Paul as a poor man,” she 
answered. 

“ Yo?” said Beatrice, raising her eyebrows. 

“Yo, never.” 

“ Of course we all knew he was bothered with 
money matters,” said Beatrice, identifying herself with 
the Carew family. 

“ He never told me,” said Connie, feeling inclined 
to cry. 


172 


CORRUPTION. 


The new house and the new life liad ceased to be an 
unmixed delight. 

“ Paul is much too picturesque and charming to 
talk to you about anything so material as insufficiency 
of income,” continued Beatrice. “ I never told Gerald 
v.'hat a relief it was to order the dresses I wanted. 
ISTothing ‘depoetises’ a situation so rapidly as its 
purely^ commercial aspect.” 

She shan’t, she thought spitefully, go on fancy- 
ing he married her for her pretty pink and white 
face. 

But Carew’s wife thought, she thinks Paul mar- 
ried me for the same reason that she married Mr. Man- 
nering. 

The course of her life which had glided smoothly 
through an enchanted land, was checked with a horrid 
jolt. There are no automatic brakes to save our feel- 
ings from painful collisions against the obstructions of 
worldliness. 

“ He doesn’t care a bit for money ! ” she exclaimed 
indignantly. 

“ Hone of us do,” said Beatrice bluntly, “ we only 
care for what money can bring. Of course, a man in 
Paul’s position can never marry a poor girl.” 

And then Mrs. Carew felt she was on the point of 
disliking Mrs. Mannering. A jealousy-provoking pos- 
sibility was beginning to loom through the shadows 
coloured by her ideals. If Beatrice had not been poor, 
or if Paul had been rich, she might never have been 
Mrs. Paul Carew. 


CORRUPTION. 


173 


“ But don’t you take a very worldly view of love and 
marriage ? ” she asked, with a secret fluttering of indig- 
nation at the bottom of her simple heart. 

“ What ! I, my dear,” said Beatrice smiling, “ I don’t 
believe there is a less worldly woman in England than 
myself, except you. But, you see, I have had to look 
on the world from tlie point of view of a country par- 
son’s daughter. It widens the horizon on one side, no 
doubt, but it perhaps limits it a little too. But, after 
all, other things being equal, as the wise say, why 
should not a man consider the material prospect of 
marriage ? It is disillusioning, no doubt. But illusions 
are foolish counsellors. I used to have broods of them, 
but gradually most of them died of chills caught from 
the draughts of Society. Of course, I am not thinking 
of you and Paul, Connie. There could not have been 
a prettier match than yours — all doves, nightingales, 
and orange blossoms. You can afford to keep cages 
and cages full of the most charming illusions, filen de- 
light to find them in their wife’s trousseau. Some people 
call them the ‘poetry of life.’ They are a beautiful 
fringe to the imagination. Paul has, or used to have, 
heaps of them. But I must run away. We are dining 
out to-night. I am so glad I was the first of your 
friends to call on you. Good-bye, dear.” 

Then she stooped gracefully and gave the girl a 
slight kiss on her right cheek. But Connie’s troubled 
eyes made her linger a second. 

“ What is the difference between an illusion and a 
self-deception ? ” she asked. 


174 


CORRUPTION. 


“ There is a family likeness between them,” Beatrice 
replied, smiling, “ but an honest illusion is far more 
becoming.” 


CHAPTER XXIL 

A SEAT in the next Government ! A seat in the 
next Government ! 

The wheels of his wife’s victoria, the roar of the 
Piccadilly traffic, rattled this, like an ancient refrain, 
into Carew’s ears. It had become a part of his brain 
music. But now disappointment in the shape of the 
Prime Minister’s fanaticism threatened to break the 
melody. Having climbed so high, he saw but one end 
to his ambition. The age of young men had come 
round again. The elder statesmen must give way to 
the pushing crowd of juniors. The process of political 
obsolescence was sapping the influence of the preced- 
ing generation of public men. Of the rising new ones 
he was amongst the ablest. Few could rival him as a 
debater ; as a reader of the signs of the times he was 
pre-eminent. But, thanks to the Prime Minister’s 
scheme of Prohibition, the young men of the Opposi- 
tion would have the first chance ! Greville’s Prohi- 
bition Bill meant a ministerial defeat, and probably a 
period of comparative impotence for the Carewites. 

On the other hand, if the Prime Minister could be 
induced (as he could not) to shirk his promises to 
the temperance party, which had bullied every Govern- 


CORRUPTION. 


175 


ment that had come into power for the last fifteen 
years, the Opposition, even if they were returned to 
power, would, according to Carew’s estimate, only win 
by a trifling majority, and the powers of “ squeezing ” 
now enjoyed by his party, would hardly be curtailed. 

But Greville, by sacrificing everything to his great 
scheme of “ coercive teetotalism,” was driving the pro- 
gressive Imperialists, the moderate Liberals, and the 
unclassed Independents into the camp of political 
enemies, with whom an alliance, as far as Carew was 
concerned, had long since became impossible. His wife 
looked into his gloomy face and recalled, not without 
misgivings, her conversation with Beatrice Mannering. 

“ Paul is worried about something,” she said to 
herself. 

But, after listening to her father and husband, she 
determined to find the grievance in “ the political situ- 
ation.” 

It all seemed Mr. Greville’s fault ! But she liked 
Mr. Greville, to whom she had been introduced at a 
reception at the Foreign Office. He had been fatherly 
and courteous and “ charming about Paul.” 

One evening she made up her mind to “ have it 
out ” with her husband, whose long silences were begin- 
ning to paralyse her, so she ran down to the luxurious 
study, planned and decorated for his lordly comfort, 
and walked in. 

He rose from the low arm-chair in which he was 
sitting smoking, and wheeled her a seat opposite. 

“ I want to see if I can’t help you, Paul,” she said. 

12 


176 


CORRUPTION. 


“ How?” he asked, a little surprised. 

“ I don’t know. I wish I did. But I can see you 
are 'worried.” 

“ Everyone who goes in for politics is,” he said. 

“ It all conies from the ‘ political situation,’ then ? ” 

He laughed — hut not very cheerfully. 

“ I am vexed with it,” he admitted. 

“ But why ? What has Mr. Greville done to annoy 
you and papa ? ” 

“ He has brought in a bill on which he must be 
beaten at the next general election.” 

“ But how will that hurt you, Paul ? ” 

“ Because my chances of being offered a place in 
Greville’s Government may be deferred for another six 
years. Everyone knows that when Greville is called 
on to form another Government, he must do something 
for us.” 

The “ us ” made Mrs. Carew smile happily. 

“ I always felt Mr. Greville would help us,” she 
said; “he is a dear- old gentleman, with the most 
charming manners, and the most beautiful head of 
white hair. I am very, very sorry he is going to be 
beaten.” 

“ He won’t care much, Connie. He will say, ‘ I am 
the victim of my principles ’ ; and after he has been 
four or five years out in the cold, a number of emo- 
tional people in the country will say, ‘Yes, so you are,’ 
and perhaps then we shall have another chance.” 

“ Then your advancement depends on Mr. Greville ?” 

“ Yes.” 


CORRUPTION. 


177 


“ I’m so glad you are only worried about politics.” 

“ Whv, what else could it be ? ” 

“ Oh ! all sorts of things.” 

“ Name half a dozen or so.” 

‘‘Disappointment with — well — for what you have 
given up.” 

She remembered the painful train of thought — sug- 
gested by Beatrice Mannering — that Paul might have 
married her for her fortune, but because she did not 
believe it could get no closer to it than this. 

He looked at her gravely. 

“ The ‘ giving up ’ is all on your side,” he said. 

“ Then you are not disappointed in me, Paul.” 

“ Who could be with so sweet a rose ? ” he asked, 
trying, to banish the anxious glance that lurked in the 
affection of her eyes. 

“ A rose isn’t very useful, I’m afraid.” 

“ It is beautiful and inspiring — and that is better. 
But if you look like that, I shall think some one has 
been slandering me.” 

Then smiling back on him, she said : 

“ People do talk of you to me, of course.” 

“ Who does ? I mean of our friends ? ” 

“ Beatrice Mannering.” 

He was prepared for this. 

“ What does she say ? ” 

“ She believes you will carry everything before you, 
and so do I. Naturally we talk of you. She knows 
you better than anyone ; but I want to know you better 
even than she does, only you see she has had twenty 


178 


CORRUPTION. 


years’ start ! She says I must hel}^ you. Oh, Paul ! I 
never knew you wanted any money.” 

Carew frowned. Was a collision between these two 
women inevitable ? 

“ I have no need of money,” he said sternly, “ and I 
hope you will avoid discussing the question with Mrs. 
Mannering.” 

But his wife felt if anyone deserved reproof it was 
Beatrice, and although Carew spoke like a man who 
desires to dismiss a painful topic once and for all, this 
time a sort of cryptic jealousy urged her to face the 
edge of his displeasure. 

“Your cousin,” she answered, “began it, not I. 
She said it was very hard for a man in your position to 
want things that he couldn’t aiford, and that it was my 
duty to help you. At first I didn’t understand her, but 
soon it dawned on me that she meant you might want 
money. My fortune is settled on me, but I want you 
to understand that that needn’t matter. There mustn’t 
be a question of that kind between us, Paul. It is all 
yours. If you want to sink capital in your property in 
Westshire, I hope you will do so.” 

She had shown her cards. 

“ You are very kind and generous,” he said ; “ but 
my property in the country has dwindled down to a 
few farms, which are let on long leases. Your father 
perfectly understands my position, and I supposed he 
had explained it to you.” 

Then he saw that the tension was growing too 
much for his wife, and added : “ But I can see you 


CORRUPTION. 1Y9 

have something on your mind. Tell me what it 
is?” 

“ It is a horrible thought, Paul.” 

“ Tell me all the same?” 

She did with a breaking voice. 

“ I have been thinking that perhaps, after all, you 
didn’t marry — didn’t marry me only because you loved 
me.” 

And then she began to cry. 

Amongst Carew’s opinions of human nature dwelt 
the belief that a jealous woman shoots poisoned arrows, 
lie suspected Beatrice of trying a few slight experi- 
ments in moral vivisection on his wife, and was deeply 
annoyed. 

“ You don’t realise quite that you are classing me 
amongst the vulgar herd of adventurers and fortune- 
hunters,” he said. 

“ It is a horribly insulting thing to say, I know,” 
she answered ; “ but I only said it to make you say it 
wasn’t true.” 

Her tears irritated him the more, because they were 
a just tribute to a situation she must never understand. 

He rose from his chair and held her left hand in 
his ; with the other she was drying her tears. 

“ I married you because I was very fond of you. 
Money is, I admit, useful to me ; but I don’t think I 
care for it so much as most men.” 

“ I’m sure you don’t, Paul, dear, and I told her so.” 

He fancied he was telling the truth, and the can- 
dour of conviction seemed to give weight to his words. 


180 


CORRUPTIOX. 


“ But I can’t believe Beatrice Mannering told you 
that I married you because you were an heiress.” 

“ She didn’t, Paul. She only said that I was to 
help you with money. This made me think about it, 
and so the thing grew, and I’m very sorry for what I 
said. But when you are intensely fond of anyone 
immeasurably better and cleverer than yourself, you 
can’t help fancying things. ISTow I believe you married 
me because you wanted me for yourself, so, please, for- 
get how insulting I have been. Your cousin never 
meant to make mischief between us, I’m sure. Please 
don’t say anything about it to her.” 

Her tears dried swiftly beneath the consolation of 
his caresses. 

“ Poor little girl ! to make herself so sorry for a silly 
fancy,” he said. “ But listen ! You must promise 
never to believe anything bad you hear about me. 
Remember people of all sorts slander public men.” 

“ But Beatrice hasn’t.” 

“ ISTo, doubtless she meant well ; but the suspicion 
that underlies all affection made you misunderstand 
her.” 

“ That’s exactly it, Paul,” she answered, marvelling 
at this obvious interpretation of her feelings, and 
ashamed that it had escaped her. 

“ It is not always the men who protest the most who 
feel the most, Connie.” 

“ Of course not,” she said, with the ghost of a com- 
forting sob in her voice. 

“ But I want to settle this matter once and for all,” 


CORRUPTION. 


181 

lie continued. “ If we are to be happy, we must trust 
one another.” 

“ But I do trust you implicitly.” 

“ You didn’t when you made that suggestion.” 

“ I did, though I didn’t seem to. What is it I am 
to promise, Paul ? ” 

“ To despise every hint and suggestion that lowers 
me in your estimation.” 

“ I do promise, though it is quite unnecessary, for 
nothing that possibly could happen would make me 
think evil of you.” 

“ Promise me something else — never to be — it’s an 
ugly word, and I’m ashamed to use it — jealous.” 

“ I never will be — there ! ” 

And she threw her arms round his neck and nestled 

I 

her wet cheeks against his face. 

“ And now,” she said, “ you must let me try to help 
you. You haven’t a secretary. Let me be your sec- 
retary. I write quite a nice hand — almost firm like a 
man’s.” 

He had not bargained for this. 

“ You mustn’t think it is your duty to bore yourself 
because you married a musty politician.” 

“ But I should love to help you so, to sit with you 
and arrange your papers. It is much nicer here with 
you than in the drawing-room with the fashion papers. 
All those big books of yours make me feel quite an im- 
portant person. I can answer all your tiresome letters. 
You shall dictate them. It would be lovely! You 
have no idea what aptitude I have for business ! I will 


182 


CORRUPTION. 


try to understand all about tbe Proliibition Bill and 
parliamentary procedure, and then we shall be able to 
talk about politics for hours and hours together.” 

The prospect was not an unmixed delight for him, 
but he tried to face it amiably. Such compacts, he 
suspected, led to the undermining of a husband’s right 
to open his own letters, and produced dismal domestic 
confusion. 

“ Every morning after breakfast,” he said magnani- 
mously, “ you shall come down here and answer letters 
for me.” 

“ How lovely ! I shall enjoy it ! ” 

“ Only you mustn’t open the letters, Connie.” 

“ Why not? I’m sure you may open all mine.” 

“ I should never dream of it. There are such things 
as secrets — political ones, I mean. All members of 
Parliament must keep a close eye on their correspond- 
ence.” 

“Very well, then. I will only arrange them in a 
neat pile, with all the envelopes of the same size to- 
gether. I will file those you don’t want destroyed, 
and keep an address-book alphabetically, and make 
a synopsis — I learned how to do that at school — 
of any communications you wish to pigeon-hole. 
There ! ” 

“ Thank you, my pretty little secretary-bird, so you 
shall.” 

“After a little practice, Paul, I’m sure I shall be- 
come quite expert.” 

“ I’m sure you will.” 


CORRUPTION. 


183 


Then she ran upstairs v/ith a heart very considerably 
lightened. 

“ Poor child ! whatever happens she shan’t be un- 
happy,” thought Carew. He considered himself a gen- 
erous, chivalrous, and most amiable gentleman for 
tolerating the limitless affection of his innocent and 
pretty wife. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

“ Beatrice,” said Carew, “ you must not peck that 
poor child.” 

“Meaning Mrs. Carew?” Mrs. Mannering asked, 
drolly imitating a Westshire accent. 

“ Yes.” 

“ We must peck a little, we are such friends.” 

“ I would prefer you as polite enemies.” 

“Xo doubt, Paul, but I have rights — anomalous 
ones, perhaps. One of them is to peck, as you call it. 
But I haven’t exercised it yet. It is true that 
I had a conversation with her yesterday — a most inter- 
esting one, all about you. I gave her some excellent 
matronly advice.” 

“ The effect has been to make her suspect that I 
m.arried her for her money.” 

“If Mrs. Paul Carew insists on misapplying the 
casual remarks of her friends,” said Beatrice, with 
an impartial air, “ she will cause you both much 
unnecessary worry. I am glad Gerald is less sensitive.” 


184 : 


CORRUPTION. 


“Please be serious, Beatrice. For my sake, let my 
wife alone. She mustn’t be made miserable.” 

“ Miserable already ? The other day she was the 
happiest girl in London, and I envied her.” 

“ Don’t envy her ; pity her, be kind to her.” 

“ When you were at Elcourt,” she answered, “ you 
told me that we couldn’t make a life like yours and 
mine a simple thing of what one ought to feel or 
ought not to feel. You also said that we v/ere ‘all 
more or less birds of prey.’ IIow can you be sur- 
prised, then, if your wife has her pretty plumage 
slightly rumpled occasionally ! ” 

“ I am not surprised. I am only asking you not 
to rumple it. You are clever enough to spoil her 
poor little cup of false happiness with a whisper, but 
I don’t think you are cruel enough. So far our 
friendship has hurt no one but ourselves. I know 
this is an extraordinary appeal that I am making to 
you, and that you can laugh it out of court easily 
enough ; but don’t abuse the power you have over me. 
I have told you over and over again that my marriage 
need make no difference to us. In a year or two 
Connie will become a woman of the world, and learn 
to weigh things in a different balance.” 

“ Quite like one of ourselves, Paul ? ” 

“Who knows? Perhaps. But I don’t want her 
education hurried, nor you to undertake it.” 

“Her development shall be perfectly natural, and 
shall come from her environment. You cannot see 
there is another side to this question besides yours. 


CORRUPTION. 


185 


It makes me ill to see lier adoring you in that meek 
way of hers, although it has a very different effect 
upon you. You told me that when I needed comfort 
I was to come to you, that passion ‘ was stronger than 
law, stronger than society’; and now a pretty, little, 
dull, adoring woman takes possession of you, and you 
come and ask me to help you to increase the delight of 
her fool’s paradise. But there are limits even to my 
generosity. You will end in loving her. As men 
grow older and wickeder, the combined influence of 
feminine dulness and innocence grows on them.” 

The vindictive ring to her voice left unruffled the 
easy grace of her attitude. She sat amongst the cush- 
ions of her low chair, her flowing draperies falling 
softly round the tranquil curves of her graceful beauty. 
The servant bringing in the tea interrupted Carew’s 
reply. He scarcely knew whether they were at war or 
peace. 

“ If any one calls,” she said to the man, “ I’m not 
at home.” 

The small table was now between them. 

“ Will you have some tea,” she asked. “ Tea is 
always a sort of armistice. Let me see, what are we 
fighting about ? ” 

“You have just told me that the wickeder I become, 
the more I admire innocence in others, and that as I 
advance in years my admiration for innocence in- 
creases ; and I have been thinking over the deep phi- 
losophy of the remark, but you have not promised to 
let Connie alone. No tea, thank you.” 


186 


CORRUPTION. 


But his anger was restoring her own equanimity. 

If, she reflected, he endures such interference as 
mine without taking stronger measures than a feeble 
“please, don’t,” my influence over him cannot be 
greatly on the wane. 

“ You surely cannot imagine,” she said relenting, 
“ that I want to make you unhappy ? ” 

“ No, not unless you are vastly changed.” 

“ I am not, although I have great changes to face. 
I once heard our good rector at Elcourt — the dear 
rector who made you his text — say that ‘ a good woman 
might be a bad man’s salvation,’ so perhaps I fear the 
effect of virtue too much.” 

“ Why do you always associate me with badness?” 

“ I don’t ; but duller people might if I wrote your 
biography. If any woman is to be your salvation, I 
think I have the first claim. You have several times 
insisted on Mrs. Carew’s innocence and youth vaunting, 
accidentally perhaps, the charm of goodness. You are 
morbidly anxious lest I should say something to hurt 
Mrs. Carew, and you do your best to keep us apart. 
Have you forgotten our conversation in the garden at 
Elcourt ? ” 

“No; I remember every interview we have ever had. 
But it was a foolish one. You said you w^ere jealous.” 

“Yes, jealous; because you played your part too 
naturally. You are playing it better than ever now.” 

“ Listen, Beatrice ! ” he said, rising from his seat. 
“ You said just now I couldn’t understand how you 
felt about this business. I tell you I can, or I 


CORRUPTION. 


187 


wouldn’t submit to tins. Marriage for me was merely 
a necessary step in my career. Between us the 
question of jealousy is absurd, although its absurdity 
hasn’t prevented both of us from feeling it. If 
Mannering and — you know whom I mean — are ever 
let into the secret, two domestic kingdoms of cards 
will be blown to perdition. You are always forgetting 
what I am for ever remembering. Have not I en- 
dured Mannering? Make him jealous, and your per- 
sonal comfort, your freedom, your goings and com- 
ings, and our meetings, the one great joy of my life, 
w^ould be gone. It is the same with me. Marriage 
is a convention which we have both accepted for our 
own convenience. We each owe the other a secret debt 
wdiich is much stronger, and if the worst ever come w'e 
are prepared to pay it. Am I right ? ” 

She acquiesced with a sign. 

’ “Well, then, since it is inevitable that you and the 
girl I have married must meet, try to make every possi- 
ble allowance for all you see and hear.” 

“ There is another alternative,” she ansv\^ered se- 
cretly triumphant, that it had not occurred to him, 
“ you might end it all. Our alliance isn’t essential for 
the welfare of society. It can be dissolved.” 

Her levity hurt him through the intense seriousness 
of the moment. 

“ It is too late,” he said — “ at least too late for me.” 

The emotion in his face and voice kindled all her 
tenderness for him. 

“It is too late,” she said, “and forgive me for 


188 


CORRUPTION. 


doubting you. There can be no break between the past 
behind us and the future before.” 

The excitement she drew from subterfuge and con- 
cealment, the gratification her vanity derived from the 
abasement of a man whom others deemed so strong, 
had grown with habit. She was proud to pull strings 
invisible to all others. She knew there had been 
women, both in the history of France and England, 
wFom beauty had made a power behind many a royal 
throne and ministerial chair. Carew had never taken a 
step in politics without telling her, and listening to her 
views. The prospect of a “pretty pink and white 
miss” capturing her prize at the moment when her 
triumph seemed approaching had filled her with bitter 
resentment. 

Beatrice, however, had not shot her arrow solely 
from jealousy. She hoped it might prick Carew, too. 
Now she felt sure that the bonds — bonds that some men 
can never break — which she had year after year wound 
round him were strong as ever. She was capable of 
magnanimity towards the little victim caught unawares 
in their folds. Carew was the centre of a confidence 
and trust that provoked her unwholesome derision. 
She could laugh at the solemn leading articles Carew 
called forth ; the pompous compliments “ honourable 
members ” automatically paid the brilliant member for 
“the Beauvis Division of Westshire ” ; deride the satis- 
faction of the Muirs, pining for a son-in-law on the 
ministerial benches ; ridicule herself and her lover, and, 
through the whole ugly chain of hidden things, the 


CORRUPTION. 139 

shallow society on which the fragile and corrupt fabric 
of her power was based. 

She had sold her beauty, her honour, her intellect, 
her youth, but felt neither sorrow nor shame at her 
bargain. The law of life had been simplified into a 
scheme of happiness for herself. Her passion for him 
was necessary to complete it. The vivid gifts which 
were a part of her temperament and her sense of 
beauty had filled up in her consciousness the spaces 
loss of innocence had left vacant. Judged by the 
ethical code invented for the sustenance of her own 
dignity, she was nearly guiltless. There was no re- 
morse visible in the beauty of her gaze. It had been 
slain by the natural process of atrophy. Early ideals 
had died out one by one under the metallic glitter of 
Carew’s materialism. Socially, success now seemed 
assured. Women liked her, the men admired her; 
beauty, art, perfect tact, her husband’s w^ealth and 
repute as “ gentleman and a sportsman,” all told in her 
favour. Under the specious cloak of the cousinship 
no malignant eye — except, perhaps, that of an envious 
servant or two — had peered. 

On this warm May afternoon, when Carew came to 
beg for mercy for his wife, dragging the chain of his 
abasement with unashamed foot, she had been dream- 
ing of social triumphs. The storm was over now, and 
Carew was drinking the tea he had refused, with a faint 
suspicion in his manner of the man who is cliez lid. 

“ Paul,” she said, “ I have not made the best of my 
opportunities. Hitherto I have been little better than 


190 


CORRUPTION. 


one of tlie crowd, henceforth I mean to be a leader. 
You must help me.” 

“ How ? ” he asked. 

“ With advice and celebrities, of course. You must 
bring me all the nicest and promising men in Parlia- 
ment, entice me Cabinet Ministers, get me written 
about in the most useful papers and in the right wa}', 
and save me from bores and nuisances.” 

“ Can’t Mannering do this for you as well as I ? ” he 
asked maliciously. 

“ He has neither the experience, the taste, the tact, 
nor the necessary ill-nature. All manner of tiresome' 
people smack him on the back, and call him ‘ Old fel- 
low.’ Unless I were careful we should he deluged with 
sportsmen. I have made up my mind for a series of 
brilliant receptions this season. What is the use of 
crowding one’s rooms with third-rate novelists of both 
sexes, and fifth-rate poets of neither ? ” 

“ Mrs. Mannering means to prepare a salon, ancien 
style 9 ” he said, smiling. 

“ Exactly ; and I have been talking to Gerald about 
it, and he agrees that it is time w^e did something. We 
must begin to sift. My visiting list needs re-editing. 
It is too eminently respectable, and dismally wanting in 
colour, variety, and excitement.” 

“ Celebrities are far more interesting at a distance. 
They are generally of dyspeptic habit, and plain in 
appearance.” 

“ How modest of you, Paul ! ” 

“I’m a serious man, a very different being. You 


CORRUPTION. 


191 


can do without celebrities, but you must have us. I’m 
thankful to say we needn’t advertise in the drawing- 
rooms of the ‘ smart.’ ” 

“ You are too fortunate ! But I don’t want to be 
too ‘ smart,’ only just ‘ smart ’ enough. The brilliant 
atoms must gravitate here naturally. I have no taste 
for chasing them all over London with cheap baits. 
I’m willing to take some trouble to catch them, only no 
one must see it. The position at which I aim must 
seem inevitable.” 

“ You want to sit on a little throne of your 
own ? ” 

“ Yes. It will keep me out of mischief, and be an 
amusement for my declining years. Isn’t there room 
for me ? ” 

“ Yes ; only I’m afraid you’re too clever for the 
place.” 

“ You overrate the value of dulness. If you v/ill 
help me to sift, collect, and construct the materials, 
you shall see what a ‘lordly pleasure-house’ I will 
build for my most worldly soul.” 

Here Mannering entered the room. 

“ Tea all cold, as usual, Beattie ? ” he said, after 
shaking hands with Carew. 

“ Yes, but I will ring for some more. I have been 
telling Paul of my scheme to reform society by organ- 
ising an intelligent centre for it to revolve on, and he 
has promised to co-operate, and without a fee.” 

“ Beatrice is very keen on entering for the society 

stakes ; of course she will be well in the running if she 
13 


192 


CORRUPTION. 


doesn’t tire; but I tell her tlie prize isn’t worth win- 
ning,” said Mannering. 

“ I am going to win ; I always win ; I was born to 
win, no one knows that better than you and Paul,” she 
said. 

“ ’Pon my word, I believe you were,” said her hus- 
band, looking at her animated face proudly. “ But I 
have a bad piece of news. One of the whips has just 
told me that Oreville means to bring in his confounded 
Prohibition Bill on the 10th of June. He will get the 
licking he deserves. I’m in a funk ; they won’t return 
me again. Hawton’s one of the tipsiest towns in Eng- 
land, and runs some of the Scotch burghs close, and I 
hear there’s a Prohibitionist candidate stumping the 
constituency already.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

The prospects of dissolution and its probable effects 
on his fortunes now absorbed Carew, otherwise his life 
fell into a smoother groove than ever. His wife’s affec- 
tionate admiration soon appeared merely one natural 
current more in the stream of life’s luxury. He accepted 
adoration without fuss, enjoyed it, and except occasion- 
ally, when more exciting occupations made him forget, 
tried to be grateful. 

Connie, on her side, enjoyed her position as “ Mr. 
Carew’s pretty little wife ’’ exceedingly. There was the 


CORRUPTION. 


193 


inevitable comparison, of course. As a hostess she 
faded into insignificance beside the brilliant Beatrice, 
now measuring her talents, her energies, her charm, her 
wit against the dozen other women competing for the 
same brazen crown, still Mrs. Carew was a creditable 
wife, honest, candid, unsuspicious. Epigrams are at a 

discount in the domain of domesticity. 

%/ 

“ I am beginning to understand things so much bet- 
ter now, Paul ; don’t you think so ? ” she would say to 
him in the morning in his study when he permitted her 
to enjoy the luxury of “ making herself useful ” amongst 
the letters needing no answer, and papers, prospectuses, 
and pensive appeals for which the rubbish basket con- 
veniently gaped. 

One morning Mannering, who had called early to 
ask Carew’s advice about some electioneering point, 
found her alone recopying the draft of an article on 
“The Suicide of a Well-meaning Ministry,” which 
Carew had written for the Comet. 

“ Didn’t know you were a politician, Mrs. Carew,” 
said he, admiring the zeal she bestowed on her manu- 
script. 

“ You wouldn’t think I was writing a leading article, 
would you ? ” she asked, smiling. 

“ You couldn’t do anything so dreadful,” he said, 
laughing ; “ even Beattie wouldn’t be guilty of that.” 

“ Does she act as your secretary ? ” 

“ 'No ; Pm much more likely to act as hers. But 
may I sit down and wait for Carew ? He told me to 
call here about half-past ten,” 


194 


CORRUPTION. 


“ He is riding in the Park ; I expect him in every 
minute. I make him go ; it is so good for him, and he 
does work so hard 1 ” 

“Quite right. There’s nothing like exercise. But 
I’ll read the papers; never mind me. Please go on 
with your writing.” 

So Connie’s pen hurried over the wliite foolscap ; 
Mannering rustled the TimeSy carelessly skimming last 
night’s debate; the west wind brought the faint fra- 
grance of the lilacs from the Gardens, and the second 
post arrived. 

Mrs. Carew took the letters from the salver and 
began to arrange them neatly with the others. Some 
looked like invitations, several bore the stamp of the 
House of Commons, and one was a bill from a Bond 
Street jeweller. 

She was allowed to open circulars and advertise- 
ments, and promptly decided this was one. 

“ The TimeSy here, pays Carew a big compliment on 
his attitude over the Prohibition Bill,” said Mannering. 
“‘It is rarely,’ it says, ‘ our good fortune to agree with 
Mr. Carew whose political methods are at mutiny with 
too many traditions of parliamentary life. Free-lances 
we can accept, but the growth of organised but un- 
classed groups is a danger which if unchecked in the 
constituencies may end in producing confusion and 
disaster in the state. But of Mr. Carew’s attitude 
towards the absurd and iniquitous Prohibition Bill we 
can speak with unqualified praise. It is, we believe, an 
understood thing that the next Government over which 


CORRUPTIOX. 


195 


Mr. Greville will be called upon to preside will be a 
mixed one. Mr. Carew could, with no safety to its per- 
manence, be left out ; yet, in spite of this, he has an- 
nounced his intention of opposing the third reading of 
the bill on which the Ministry seems riding for a fall. 
The sacrifice of self-interest to the claims of reason is 
not so common in public life that we can allow it to 
pass without congratulating the able young politician 
who has felt himself called upon to make it.’ And so 
on. It isn’t bad of the Times. Generally it goes for 
our lot like smoke.” 

“ Paul is honest ! ” said his wife proudly. Then she 
opened the envelope with the jeweller’s imprint. 

“Dear sir,” said the memorandum, “we should be 
greatly obliged if you would send us a cheque for the 
enclosed account. We have been suddenly called upon 
to make a large and unexpected payment, otherwise 
we should not have taken the liberty of troubling 
you.” 

The account enclosed, for £250, was for “ a diamond 
pendant.” 

When she read the description, she remembered the 
pendant that Mrs. Mannering had worn. 

Her birthday was approaching. Of course Paul was 
preparing a surprise for her. She felt the necessity of 
harmless bragging, which we call “ the want of sym- 
pathy.” 

“ Evidently Paul means to give me a pendant like 
Beatrice’s. Isn’t it nice of him ? There ! I will let you 
into a secret ! ” And she handed the bill to him. 


196 


CORRUPTION. 


“ How odd ! ” he said unsuspiciously. “ Carew 

bought it more than a year ago.” 

Immediately he had said it, he regretted his words. 

“ Then it could not have been meant for me,” she 

answered, with a crimson face. 

“ That comes of opening letters,” thought Manner- 

ing regretfully. 

But Carew, entering the room, saw with an indiffer- 
ent eye that a paper had exchanged hands. 

“ Sorry I kept you waiting,” he said ; “ and I hope 
our little Secretary-Bird has been amusing you.” 

“ I have been reading Mrs. Carew a ‘ leader ’ about 
‘ an honest politician ’ from the said Man- 

nering. 

“Quite polite for once, w’asn’t it?” said Carew care- 
lessly. Then, turning towards his wife — “ How charm- 
ingly you have organised my unopened correspondence 
this morning ! But what is this ? ” 

The account for Beatrice’s pendant stared him in 
the face. 

“ It seems to be a bill for a diamond pendant. I 
opened it by accident, thinking it was merely a cir- 
cular.” 

Her voice was strained and nervous. For the mo- 
ment he hated her for opening the envelope. “ This is 
what comes of my damned good nature ! ” he thought. 

“ I see ! ” he said ; “ an unpaid bill. I forgot all 
about it.” 

He thrust it into his pocket and felt himself stand- 
ing on the edge of a panic. In his experience, he had 


CORRUPTION. 197 

often known accidental movements of this kind set the 
avalanche in motion. 

His wife felt the necessity of escape. 

“ I will leave you and Mr. Mannering to talk over 
your business,” she said, and left the room, “ to think it 
out.” 

“ The poor little woman’s jealous ! ” thought Man- 
nering, as he opened the door for her. 

“ He has seen it too,” thought Carew. 

He suspected his wife of “ innoceuce enough for 
still greater pieces of folly.” But the other’s absolutely 
candid manner told him that the accident had, so far, 
proved perfectly harmless. To ignore it altogether, and 
to trust to Mannering’s delicacy to ignore it too, was 
the best scheme. 

“No bad news from Dawton, Mannering?” he in- 
quired eagerly. 

“ Only that all the teetotallers are on the rampage, 
talking of ‘ exacting pledges from their present mem- 
ber,’ and all that sort of thing. I’ll be hanged if I 
give them a pledge. The country’s sick of temper- 
ance w'orry on this colossal scale. Your views are 
right ! ” 

A blaze of generosity diverts a man’s attention. 

“ I shall be up to the eyes speech-making at the 
General Election this beastly Bill is bringing about our 
ears,” said Carew, with friendly impetuosity ; “ but if 
the thing’s possible. I’ll come down and help you 
fight.” 

“ That’s grand of you,” said Mannering, v/ho had all 


198 


CORRUPTION. 


a young member’s terror of losing a seat which he had 
no electioneering powers of averting. 

Carew was deeply relieved when Mannering left, 
without compelling him to screw a series of ingenious 
lies out of his imagination. No one better than himself 
knew the danger of a lie — that w^orst of hostages that a 
man can give to fortune. 

Probably the incident of the pendant would be 
forgotten by Mannering in the aj^proaching excite- 
ment. 

The second part of his unexpected problem w’as 
simpler still. There should be no great difficulty in de- 
luding his wife. If he said nothing on the subject, she 
would be too proud to refer to it. He felt quite able to 
dispel any slight jealousy the incident might have ex- 
cited in her mind by the infusion of a little more de- 
monstrative enthusiasm into his affection. 

He found her in her room, at the open window. 

“ I want to be idle this morning,” he said softly ; 
“ please take me with you into the Row. Put on a 
white dress, and your prettiest hat, and we will en- 
throne ourselves on penny chairs among the lazy 
people.” 

He kissed her softly on her cheek. 

“ He couldn’t be like this to me,” she thought, “ if 
he were really deceitful. I promised him I would trust 
him, and I will.” 

“ I shall love to come, and I won’t keep you waiting 
ten minutes.” 

As Carew went downstairs, the footman was open- 


CORRUPTION. 


199 


ing the door to Harry Muir, his brother-in-law, fresh 
up from Aldershot for the day. 

“ Delighted to see you, my dear boy ! ” he said 
eagerly. “ Connie and I are just off to the Eow. 
Come too, and stay to lunch.” 

Young Muir was surprised at this excessive geni- 
ality. Marriage with his sister was improving Carew ! 
For “the member for the Beau vis Division of West- 
shire ” had not yet found it a necessary part of his 
policy to propitiate subalterns fresh from Sandhurst. 

“ What an agreeable mortal you have made of 
Carew, Connie ! ” said her brother. “ I only wish I 
could approve of him as a ‘ statesman ’ ; but I don’t 
serve in the same political awkward squad as the gov- 
ernor.” 

“ I hope you won’t argue with Paul like you do with 
papa,” she said. 

“ All right. Trust me. I won’t show him up. 
The punishment is coming from another quarter. 
You are going to be turned out at the next election.” 

But all that morning and afternoon Carew exerted 
his arts of pleasing to the utmost; and when he left 
his wife to entertain her brother, the memory of the 
jeweller’s bill had become almost insignificant — a mys- 
tery admitting a hundred innocent solutions. But, 
since her imagination could not supply one, it was obvi- 
ously the fault of her dulness, not of her husband’s 
deceit. The gold of his flattery blinded her loving 
eyes. 


200 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

INSTEAD of luncliiog at tlie Club, Mannering went 
home, for tlie pleasure of telling his wife about the jew- 
eller’s bill. He found her sitting in the conservatory 
by a small bank of mignonette. 

“ I’m calming my nerves with ‘ a crapulous French 
novel,’ ” she said ; “ and the smell of the flowers, to 
counteract it. The characters are so corrupt that I feel 
angelic in comparison. But you look full of 
news. What did Paul Carew say about your elec- 
tion?” 

“ Carew’s a brick ! He has promised to come to 
Dawton to help me. But I say, Beatrice, the oddest 
thing occurred. Carew was out when I arrived ; but I 
found his wife in his room, writing. lYhat do you 
think? She actually opens his bills! You wouldn’t 
fancy he was the sort of man to stand that. He must 
have a good many he doesn’t want her to see.” 

Beatrice looked interested. 

“ I fancied he was wiser,” she said ; “ but some men 
spoil their wives.” 

“ All the best fellows do. And that’s a compliment 
to me.” 

“ The same sort of compliment my French novel 
pays me. But go on.” 

“ There was a bill from a Bond Street jeweller for a 
pendant exactly like yours. At flrst she thought he 


CORRUPTION. 


201 


intended to make her a present of one, and was so de- 
lighted that she chucked it across the table for me to 
see.” 

“ Yv^hat a little idiot ! ” said his wife. 

“ It wasn’t discreet ; but she and I are great chums. 
But this is where the joke comes in. There was the 
date to show that the pendant had been ordered more 
than a year ago.” 

The breeze that stirred the leaves and flowers of her 
conservatory through the open windows changed to an 
icy breath ; but there was reassurance in the guileless 
face of her husband. 

“And what did 3^ou say?” she asked, hiding her 
lips, which refused to smile, with her book. 

“ I’m sorry to say, I gave Carew away. You see, 
I w’as taken b^" surprise. ‘ He bought it a year ago,’ 
said I. Then she looked red and awfully uncom- 
fortable, and said, ‘ Then it couldn’t be intended for 
me.’ But in came Carew from his ride. ‘ Hullo ! 
what’s this ? ’ he asked, when he saw the bill. ‘ I 
opened it by accident,’ said she, as though she were 
going to cry. I can tell you I felt deuced uncom- 
fortable. They haven’t been married ten months 
yet ! Anyone could see that the poor little woman 
was jealous. I felt quite sorry for her.” 

“ What did Paul Carew say to you ? ” 

“ Nothing at all. He stuck it in his pocket, and 
looked a bit savage. Of course, it wasn’t for me to 
say anything. But whom was it intended for? Of 
course, he never gave it to you ? ” 


202 


CORRUPTION. 


“ I wish he had,” said Beatrice, with the hysteria 
climbing in her throat. 

“Odd though, it should be so like yours, wasn’t 

: 

“ Probably it is a handsomer one than mine — better 
diamonds, and more of them. There are a good many 
pendants about, and they look much alike. Besides, 
mine came from the Army and Navy Stores. No 
doubt Paul Carew had a satisfactory explanation to 

* 55 

give. 

“ But who could the lady be ? ” 

“ Goodness knows ! It doesn’t do to inquire too 
curiously. But you are worse than a woman, Gerald. 
You see a scandal at once. However, I suppose you 
know your own sex best.” 

“ I fancy I ought to. When a man gives a woman 
diamonds he can’t afford to pay for, you may be pretty 
certain they are not for his great-aunt’s birthday, or 
his niece’s wedding ! It was a ‘ swagger ’ pendant, 
and cost £250.” 

“ Then it must have twice as many diamonds as 
mine, and be twice as good. I am surprised at Paul, 
but eaten up with curiosity. Shall I ask him whom 
he gave it to ? ” 

“ I shouldn’t. He’s an odd-tempered fellow, and 
would know I had told you. We must keep him in 
good humour just now. It doesn’t much matter what 
presents a man gives before he is married if he pays 
for them first, which Carew omitted to do.” 

“And so long as his wife doesn’t know,” said 


CORRUPTION. 


203 


Beatrice. “ Connie Carew is the sort of girl likely to 
suffer from retrospective jealousy. It is all the fashion 
now.” 

Beatrice, who felt like a swift- winged bird just 
missed by the fowler’s net, fixed her eyes on her book ; 
whilst Mannering fidgeted amongst the fiower-pots 
till she felt inclined to scream. She had been up late 
the evening before. Generally, a long morning’s 
tranquillity restored her nerves. But the red fiash-light 
shot out of the darkness by the pendant had shaken 
them. “ I shall have a headache,” she thought. She 
hated physical discomfort, and, to escape it, economised 
her strength. “ If I worry myself like this, I shall 
look a hag.” Then she tried hard not to care, hut a 
hoof and horn and a grinning face — the “you’ll be 
found out ” — looked over her shoulder. 

“ There is blight on this rose-tree, or something,” 
said Mannering. 

Then his back would knock against her chair, and 
the symptoms of headache became more distinct. 

“ Oh, dear ! let’s hope its only ‘ something,’ ” she 
said Tv^earily. 

“ ’Fraid I’m fidgeting you,” he said, with the tone 
of a man who is convinced he was not. “ I’ll just 
smoke the little beasts out, whatever they are.” 

He lit a cigarette, and puffed it on the leaves. 

“ They are tumbling down like ‘ winking,’ ” he said. 
“ They are green, and have legs. What can they 
be? I should like to put ’em under a magnifying- 
glass.” 


204 


CORRUPTION. 


“Men like yon are better without magnifying- 
glasses,” she said. 

“ Why men like me ? That’s a big fellow. How 
wicked he looks ! He can’t stand nicotine, though.” 

“ Because if they had, they w^ould make more fuss 
about trifles than they do at present,” she said. “ The 
world shoots through space in its orbit round the sun 
at the rate of nineteen miles every second, if my 
schoolbooks have not deceived me. When I want to 
keep calm, I remember that. I try to think of it every 
time you bump against my chair.” 

“ What a memory you have, Beattie ! Nineteen 
miles a second ! I suppose it’s all right. That’s the 
last of them.” 

He threw away the remainder of his cigarette. 

“ By George ! you look quite seedy, Beattie,” he 
exclaimed. 

“ I am going to have a headache.” 

“ Poor old girl ! ” he said, laying his hand on her 
head. “ I am sorry ! ” 

It was rather hot, and smelt of smoke ; but she let 
it rest there. 

“ Does that do it good?” 

« Ah— Yes.” 

“ Which means no. Try a brandy and soda. 
Nothing like a ‘ peg.’ It always cures mine.” 

“ No. I think I’ll go and lie down.” 

“ What brought it on ? ” 

“ Late hours and lobster salad. I shall have to go 
down to Elcourt and sleep in the hammock.” 


CORRUPTION. 


205 


So Beatrice went to her room, and lay on the sofa. 
The light filtering through the green blind quieted her 
nerves. The traffic that swept down Park Lane, a 
hundred yards to the west, sounded like the stream 
flowing down the steep valley at Portradock. She 
fell asleep at last listening to it, but with an unex- 
tinguishable point of anxiety burning in her conscious- 
ness all the time. When she woke, her head was 
better and her courage restored. She bathed her face 
in cold water, inspected her eyes for the crow’s feet, 
and thought her face showed signs of the terror she had 
undergone. It was the first panic she had had since 
the day she eluded her husband in Carew’s chambers, 
and she had not stood it well. 

“ Paul and I,” she said to herself, “ have always 
agreed ‘ we must pay the price ’ ; and if it is not 
heavier than an occasional fright, I can bear my share.” 

Then she rang for her maid, who brushed her hair 
for three-quarters of an hour ; and by tea-time she was 
ready to laugh at herself again quite naturally. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

A FEW days after this the Carews gave their first 
dinner-party, and the Mannerings were amongst their 
guests. The pendant blazed defiantly on Beatrice’s 
breast. She now called it the “badge of her inno- 
cence,” in her secret and soberest musings; and con- 
stantly wore it to convince herself she was not afraid. 


206 


CORRUPTION. 


“I shouldn’t wear that at the Carews’,” said her 
husband before they started ; “ it will set ’em thinking 
of things.” 

“ That is exactly why I do it. I’m a Nemesis. If I 
left it oH, Mrs. Carew would ‘have ideas,’ and he 
would guess you had told me of the little row.” 

“ I am really brave ! ” she thought, and was proud of 
herself. 

She felt quite capable, after her first fall, of riding 
the new wild-horse stabled in her conscience. 

There were dining that evening with the Carews the 
Muirs and the brother from Aldershot, the dean who 
had married them, and his daughter, and two or three 
other guests necessary to complete the festival. 

“ The guests are not so formidable as one has a 
right to expect at the house of a parliamentary leader,” 
Beatrice said to her husband, who gave her the list — 
which he had learnt from Paul — as they drove through 
the twilight streets. 

“ I fancy Mrs. Carew wants to begin with the ‘ little 
’uns’ first,’ said Mannering. 

“ Then I wish she would not invite us to her second- 
rate parties.” 

“ They ask us, because they like us,” said he ; “ the 
others, because they must.” 

“You always see a fiattering nuance in Society’s 
treatment of you, Gerald.” 

“ What’s a nuance ? ” 

“A French word signifying heaps of things. Now, 
remember not to ask the dean what horse he has 


CORRUPTION. 


207 


backed for tlie Derby, and try not to forget to tell him 
we intend to win Dawton in spite of Dissenting opposi- 
tion. Here we are. Two powdered footmen, and 
Paul’s old valet at the door. What a blaze of splen- 
dour ! ” 

“ The valet’s nose is red. He drinks,” said Manner- 
ing, handing his wife from the carriage. 

They were the last to arrive. Beatrice felt the eyes 
of her hosts fixed on the diamonds, which hashed back 
the soft lights from her white neck. 

“ She’s happy enough,” she thought, as the young 
wife, in the plenitude of her new dignity, received 
them. 

She was to have the dean for her entertainment. 
Carew gave his arm to his mother-in-law. It was to be 
a very dull dinner, she felt ; and prepared herself for a 
mixed conversation on the exciting subject of “Mr. 
Irving’s new play,” and the progress in saered music. 
For the dean was a diner-out, and she knew his ground. 
The situation amused her. The Muirs were modestly 
complacent. They sat in an obvious atmosphere of 
“ they owe all this to us ” ; which Beatrice recognised as 
one of the pleasures of wealth. The Scoteh member 
with the Glasgow accent, who sat by Mrs. Carew, 
seemed astonished at the brevity of the “ for these and 
all other blessings ” of the dean, which included price- 
less champagne. 

“ I can’t be in the least frightened,” she told herself, 
“ for I am quite hungry.” So she commenced to enjoy 

her dinner. At the other side of the table, young Muir 
14 


208 


CORRUPTION. 


was explaining to the dean’s daughter that the horses in 
the Academy picture which she had singled out as “ the 
one she liked best,” “ were all wrong.” 

“ I don’t care about the art of the thing,” he said, 
“ but I do know how the troopers’ chargers move their 
legs; and I should like to know in what regiment 
trumpeters ride brown horses ! ” 

“ And so you play the organ in your pretty country 
church ? ” said the dean, with one half of his mind 
absorbed in his oysters. “ I used to know your rector 
at college. He was an estimable person.” 

“And he preaches nice homely sermons,” said 
Beatrice. “We can all understand him quite easily.” 

“ There is as much scope for an earnest man in a ru- 
ral parsonage as in the absorbing work one finds here.” 
He waved a patronising hand towards Westminster, 
and the footman gave him champagne. 

As dinner went on, the conversation became more 
general, wine encouraging an exchange of opinion on 
matters of deeper interest than Academy pictures seen 
through a drifting maze of big hats. 

Young Muir felt ready “ to take the dean on ” on 
any subject between painting and theology, and fell 
over the Ministry’s Prohibition Bill in his progress. 

It was his opinion that “ nothing irritated the Brit- 
ish soldier more than the unnecessary closing of public- 
houses.” 

“ Hasn’t he the canteen ? ” suggested the dean mild- 
ly, who considered his opposite neighbour of an age 
when the concealment of one’s opinions is becoming. 


COHRUPTION. 


209 

lie had been a schoolmaster, and well knew the values 
of “ views ” amongst the contemporary youth. 

“ Of course he has that ; but he naturally likes a 
place where he can drink his beer with his civilian 
friends.” 

“ If he would only confine himself to beer, one 
would have fewer misgivings,” said the dean, remem- 
bering the exceeding popularity of “ Muir’s Entire.” 

“Scotland hasn’t made up her mind on this ques- 
tion yet,” said the gentleman from Glasgow, with the 
air of a man who thinks that if she had done so the 
question would be settled. 

“Scotland’s lucky the bill doesn’t apply to her,” 
said Carew. “She is left out of the Greville experi- 
ment ; and can help to make it on England, as ‘ the 
vile body,’ without running risks herself.” 

“ Except those involved in a general election, which 
we don’t want,” said the Scotch member. 

The dean felt called upon to show an impartial 
attitude in such mixed but wealthy society. 

“ I confess I am tempted to feel like the great 
bishop who said that he would rather see England free 
than sober. I hope she will be both ; but if you once 
intrust the local authorities with powers so easily 
abused, you may end — I do not say will end — by inter- 
fering with the exercise of other individual rights.” 

“ The Dissenters might insist on preaching in the 
Churches,” suggested Beatrice, with an accent which 
showed the horror with which she contemplated the 
prospect. 


210 


CORRUPTION. 


“ The thing is conceivable,” the dean admitted. 
“But we mustn’t talk politics before ^Ir. Carew. It 
makes one feel like a small boy trying to stand up 
against professional bowling.” 

“ With a deadly break from the off,” said Manner- 
ing, at once feeling at home. 

“We shall have a general election then, Mr. Carew ?” 
inquired the dean. 

“ The Prime Minister’s attitude on Prohibition cer- 
tainly points to it.” 

“My paper — I only read the Times, but then I’m 
old-fashioned — assures me that the Opposition are 
certain to be returned to power. We — the Church, I 
mean — always feel safer when the other side is in. 
I don’t know v/hat your jiolitics are, Mrs. IManncr- 
mg.” 

“My husband’s, except on Tuesdays and Fridays, 
when I generally go over to the Oi^position,” she said, 
laughing. “ Then I want Female Enfranchisement to 
make me perfectly convinced of our superiority to man, 
and to neutralise his influence in the State.” 

“ Hah ! hah ! hah ! ” laughed Mannering, aloud, 
always on the look-out for his wife’s jokes. 

“ I can conceive nothing so demoralising for young 
v/omen as the turmoil of politics,” said Mrs. Muir. “ I 
hope you will not encourage Connie in such views, 
Paul.” 

“ She has taken to writing articles,” said Carew. 

“ Which Paul dictates,” said his wife, as though it 
were the most delightful occupation in the world. 


CORRUPTION. 


211 


“ That is quite another thing,” said her mother. “ I 
have helped your father with some of his speeches.”^ 

“ And much improved them,” said Muir, who, how- 
ever, held a diversely opposite opinion. 

“ They never had a real row over the pendant,” 
thought Beatrice ; “ there isn’t a sign of the sulks.” 

But Mrs. Carew caught her mother’s eye ; and the 
ladies, rising with rustling skirts, left the men to the 
desert of decanters, flowers, and abandoned napkins. 

In the drawing-room, Beatrice dexterously caught 
Mrs. Carew with the springe of affectionate flattery. 

“I never saw my cousin looking so well, Connie 
dear. What wonderful care you take of him! I am 
sure you must help him in many ways.” 

Carew was always “ my cousin ” when she wanted a 
picture of his married life from his wife, still standing 
on the fringe of her jealous mood. 

Mrs. Carew looked at the pendant, but, remember- 
ing her promise of implicit trust in spite of appear- 
ances, tried to chase the thought away. Moreover, 
Beatrice appeared so unaffectedly pleased that Paul 
should continue to enjoy perfect health under his 
wife’s supervision that she was disarmed. 

“ You really think he looks well ? ” 

“ Better than I have ever seen him ; like a man at 
peace with himself and the world.” 

“ Yet he has many things to worry him.” 

“ Surely not.” 

“He is put out about the Prime Minister’s bill. 
He says it means ‘ certain defeat for us ! ’ ” 


212 


CORRUPTION. 


“You are a pompous little idiot with your ‘for 
us-es,’ ” thought Mrs. Mannering, but she only said 
sweetly, “but what do political worries matter? for I 
am convinced you have no others.” 

“Not one. We understand each other better every 
day.” 

“ Do you, you little simpleton ! ” thought Beatrice, 
looking at her with eyes of sympathy. 

“ I’m always telling Paul that if the other side do 
come in, owing to Mr. Greville’s obstinacy, our turn 
must come round again in three or four years.” 

“ What does Paul say ? ” 

“ He agrees with me. But how pretty your pendant 
is!” 

“ I’m glad you like it. I will leave it to you in my 
will. I had a shock about it the other day. I saw a 
very pretty woman at the theatre with one exactly like 
it the other evening.” 

“ Who was she ? ” 

“ I don’t know. She was rather common-looking, 
and a little overdressed with suggestions of the ‘ beauty 
actress’ about her. The sort of woman men admire 
but women hate.” 

Beatrice was amused to see her spiteful darts irri- 
tating her friend’s tender places. 

“ Strange there should be two pendants like that.” 

“Very, and most annoying for me.” 

“ At which theatre did you see her ? ” 

“ At the ‘ Gaiety,’ in the stalls, with two or three 
young men about the same age as your brother.” 


CORRUPTION. 


213 

“ Where did you get your pendant from ? ” she sud- 
denly asked. 

“ From ‘ The Stores.’ ” 

“ Oh ! ” 

The interjection testified a certain feeling of relief 
on the part of the utterer. Since it did not come 
from Bond Street, of course Paul could have had 
nothing to do with it. Then Mrs. Carew felt ashamed 
of herself for mistrusting Beatrice, and decided to 
make amends to her by being “ very good to her in the 
future.” 

When the gentlemen came in there was a move to 
the piano. 

The dean’s daughter commenced with quite a new 
song, opening with the pastoral lightheartedness of 
“ The daffodils toss their cups to the breeze, for it’s oh, 
the snow is gone ! ” and ending in the tender melan- 
choly of a lover-abandoned maiden sitting alone under 
a thorn-bush waiting for Robin. 

“ How pretty ! ” exclaimed Beatrice. ‘‘ The song 
shows the same delicious feeling one finds in Marcus 
Stone’s pictures.” 

The dean’s daughter was pained by the criticism. 
She had outgrown Marcus Stone, and held advanced 
theories on the place “ women must hold in the civilisa- 
tion of to-morrow.” 

Then Beatrice threw all the pathos of the unfilled 
maternal instinct which she felt in art but dreaded in 
nature into the “ Why so coy, beloved child ? ” of Ru- 
binstein, for the benefit of Mrs. Carew ; afterwards she 


214 


CORRUPTION. 


sang “ The Fiend’s Bride,” and, as usual, brought down 
the drawing-room. 

“ Very beautiful ! rich in surprises, and most thrill- 
ing. What is its meaning ? ” exclaimed the dean. 

“ It is about a girl who fell in love with the Evil 
One,” said Beatrice, dropping her eyes modestly. 

“ Faust and Marguerite, I presume,” said the dean. 

“ Yes, but without Faust, the Evil One plays both 
the roles in this case, and the ending is not ortho- 
dox.” 

“No?” said the dean, his curiosity excited. 

“ They went down into the abyss together,” ex- 
plained Beatrice softly, as though impressed by the sin- 
gular impropriety of the action. 

“ A brilliant song, isn’t it, dean ? ” asked Carew, who 
had accepted the messages it bore him. 

“ Quite ! ” said the dean emphatically. 

“ There is said to be an allegorical meaning attached 
to it,” continued Beatrice. 

“No doubt,” said the dean, “ the power of love, or 
something of that kind.” 

“ Yes, of course,” replied Beatrice, “ but a German 
priest assured me it had a theological signification. 
He said the Evil One was intended for Luther, and his 
bride for Protestantism.” 

“ How ingenious ! ” exclaimed the dean, “ but how 
presumptuous ! ” 

“ No doubt the RocJc could find a much more rea- 
sonable theory,” said Carew. 

“ But what is the opinion of the fair singer who 


CORRUPTION. 215 

threw so much beautiful feeling into it?” asked the 
dean gallantly. 

“ It means love,” said Beatrice, in an awe-stricken 
voice, “ unlawful love, unblessed by the Church ! ” 

All the young ladies became deeply interested, and 
desired further explanations, which were not forth- 
coming. 

Then Beatrice ceased gently sounding the chords, 
and heard Mrs. Muir telling the dean’s daughter that 
she “ greatly preferred them mounted on a silk lining.” 

The Mannerings outstayed the other guests, and 
Carew found his opportunity. “ I wish,” he said, “ you 
wouldn’t wear that pendant ; it worries me to death.” 

“ Why ! isn’t it paid for ? ” she said sweetly. 

“ Yes, it’s paid for. Hasn’t he said anything 
about it ? ” 

“ What, Gerald ! well, he did tell me a comic story 
about it.” 

“ I’m glad he sees its humour.” 

“ Yes, it is a relief. But when you give a woman 
diamonds, it is usually safer to pay for them at once. 
But for heaven’s sake stop this idyllic opening of each 
other’s letters ! ” 

“ We don’t. It was a silly blunder. Mannering 
being there made it serious. What did you say to 
him?” 

“ When I told him my diamonds came from the 
‘ Stores ’ and yours from Bond Street, of course he per- 
ceived there could be no connection between them. 
The same information has relieved your wife. She has 


216 


CORRUPTION. 


been watching me all the evening like a pretty little 
Persian cat with something on her conscience.” 

“ Why on earth did you wear them to-night ? ” 

“ How dense you are ! As a badge of innocence, 
and for the fun of the thing.” 

“ I’m afraid I don’t share your subtle form of hu- 
mour.” 

“ I suppose you look at them as a sort of ‘ scarlet 
letter.’ I am beginning to feel like a Lady Macbeth up 
to date. It gives quite a new interest to life.” 

The conversation took place at the door of Carew’s 
study. On the pedestal beyond them stood the bronze 
figure, the trophy of the Dawton election. 

Mrs. Carew was showing Mannering the frieze in 
the spacious hall, that ^Mrs. Mannering had helped her 
to choose. 

“ Isn’t it original ? ” she asked. 

“ Very,” said he. “ It’s like Beatrice’s taste.” 

He was convinced nothing even in the Loyal Acad- 
emy could equal that. 

Mrs. Carew glanced at the others standing before 
the study door in animated converse. The light 
shone on the nude bronze figure, and the indefinite 
likeness it bore to Beatrice flashed vividly on her per- 
ceptions. 

“ That figure is like your wife, Mr. Mannering.” 

“ Haven’t you observed it before ? ” he asked. 

“ Ho, never.” 

“We bought it because of that. Look now, when 
Beattie half-smiles.” 


CORRUPTION. 


217 


“ Yes, I see what you mean. It is like.” 

Then the Mannerings left. 

“ A dull evening, Gerald.” 

“ It wasn’t bad. Mrs. Carew’s a nice little woman. 
Carew’s a lucky fellow. She adores him, watches him 
like, like ” 

“ Like a moth does a candle. Your imagination 
isn’t up to similes.” 

“Like anything. The other day he hadn’t a rap; 
couldn’t pay his jeweller’s bills. Now nothing is good 
enough for him. Yes, Carew’s in luck.” 

“ You seem quite envious. Aren’t you sorry your 
wife hadn’t a millionaire for a father ? ” 

“ No. If she had she wouldn’t have married me, 
and by this time she would have been an empress.” 

“You are one of those complacent men, Gerald, 
who are always sure their own belongings are the best, 
whether it is a horse or a wife.” 

She laughed, but his sincere admiration always 
pleased her. 

“ Ah,” said he, “ but you see, when I swagger about 
my horses I’m not always sure, but with my wife it’s a 
different thing.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

Carew felt the stream of incident flowing by inex- 
orably and regardless of his wishes. The boat in which 
he was vainly trying to stem it was overladen with the 


218 


CORRUPTION. 


love, selfishness, frailty, and pride heaped in it by the 
passengers who had chosen him as helmsman. The 
backwaters in which he might have taken refuge had 
ceased to attract him by the prospect of repose they 
offered. He must either shoot the rapids or be wrecked 
in his badly-balanced boat. 

He found it no easy matter to adjust himself to his 
married life. To live next to the woman who loved 
him and conceal his passion for the woman he loved 
was difficult. In his character were scattered some of 
the seeds from which tyrants are made. His successes 
in life had ill-prepared him for the shackles every man 
is compelled to wear when he has sold himself to the 
devil, but yet is sitting amongst the social elect. So 
long as a man is not found out, he can break as many 
of the commandments as he likes, but there is always a 
debt to pay. Concealment needs unrelenting effort, and 
is a weariness to the flesh. A rampart of lies and sub- 
terfuges, built of shifting sand, needs constant renew- 
ing, and when there are two watchers behind it neither 
can be sure of the alertness, endurance, or vigilance of 
the other. 

Hitherto Carew had been fighting for a rev/ard which 
seemed nearly in his grasp — a place in the next Greville 
Ministry — and the fighting had been a splendid tonic to 
keep the sentry awake at his gate. But the political 
tide in the country on which he had ridden nearly up 
to his goal had receded. 

Nothing could persuade the Prime Minister that 
“the best sentiment in the country” would abandon 


CORRUPTION. 


219 


him. If the country did refuse to support him, it must 
pay the penalty. He (Greville) had a duty to perform, 
and a pledge to fulfill. And so, “ riding for a fall,” he 
fell. On its second reading, the Prohibition Bill was 
thrown out. It would have been defeated even without 
the hostile Carewite vote which made the overthrow 
overwhelming. The appeal to the country amply proved 
the accuracy of Carew’s judgment. The Opposition 
were returned by a majority which robbed his group of 
their immediate influence as a balance, although the 
members who regarded Carew as their leader were in- 
creased by secessionists from the discontented ranks of 
the Grevillites. 

The Beauvis division returned their member unop- 
posed, leaving Carew at liberty to fight the election of his 
friends. Thanks greatly to his energies, Mannering was 
returned once more for Dawton, but by a decreased ma- 
jority owing to the prohibitionist candidate who insisted 
on going to the poll. And so the summer passed in the 
indefinite postponement of Carew’s hopes. The new 
Parliament which assembled in July was prorogued 
early in August, and the Carews went to Scotland and 
passed the autumn with the Muirs. But the season 
which had ended in Carew’s discomfiture and disappoint- 
ment had been a social triumph for Beatrice. Her wit 
and beauty and her boundless tact gained for her the crown 
she sought. Duchessescompetedfor her asaguest ; Royal 
Academicians contested for the honour of painting her ; 
a youthful poet — the last new genius — fell in love with 
her, and dedicated a mystic book of poems to her. 


220 


CORRUPTION. 


“ I meant to be talked about, and I am talked about, 
and I know you are sorrier than ever that you didn’t 
marry me,” she said to Carew. “ Come to us at Elcourt 
for the pheasant shooting, and leave your wife in the 
Highlands if you can.” 

Whenever Society has made up its mind to regard a 
man’s wife merely as a beautiful woman of fashion, it at 
once proceeds to allow her a scope and latitude which is 
tyrannously withheld from the sisters whom she has 
beaten in the competition. Eigid morals are no more 
expected from her than abstention from rouge. She 
may say what she likes, and dress how she likes — if 
her figure is beautiful — and neither the most decollete 
dresses, nor the most risque mots will shock the corrupt 
little world that has temporally enthroned her. The 
woman of fashion invents new forms of vulgarity, which 
her admirers identify as brilliant manifestations of 
“ smartness.” The cocotte and the professional beauty 
dance in the same unhallowed ring. 

All manner of men made love to Mrs. Mannering ; 
an unattached German prince, with a character for in- 
trigue which was magnificently bad, singled her out for 
especial honour, till Mannering grew restive and even 
consulted Carew, who knew that she was consoling her- 
self for his marriage by her brilliant plunge into com- 
plete worldliness. 

“ Of course I know it’s all right, Carew,” said he, 
“ but these fellows are a new breed to me. They make 
love to a man’s wife under his very nose.” 

“ That’s the best evidence of its harmlessness,” said 


CORRUPTION. 


221 

Carew, cynically “ but she won’t stand it if you ask her 
not to.” 

“ She laughs at me, and says I am old-fashioned,” 
said the other, as he reflected that, after all, it was 
merely the price one must pay for a beautiful wife. 

“You are making Mannering jealous — look out,’? 
said Carew one evening, as he gave her an ice at a 
crowded reception. 

“ How careless of me ! ” she said. “ I have been so 
busy that I was forgetting to keep him in good hu- 
mour.” 

“ Do you mean to say that you And any satisfaction 
in all this sort of thing ? ” he asked. 

“ Oh, yes ; the salvation one finds in ‘ smartness.’ 
Perhaps it is the same sort of comfort you derive from 
matrimony. But, there, I can see your wife looking at 
us. Don’t make her jealous. She isn’t looking very 
well. Caution her against over-fatigue, and take me 
back to my prince.” 

But although jealous women “ ran down ” Mrs. 
Mannering, the ripples of scandal never became for- 
midable waves. 

“ When Mr. Mannering himself is not standing sen- 
try over her reputation, that wonderful Mr. Carew is 
on the watch,” said the world. 

“ But they are cousins, my dear,” said the good- 
natured observer. 

The allusion to the cousinship was at last beginning 
to provoke a smile, but the last to hear of this sort of 
mirth are those who provoke it. 


222 


CORRUPTION. 


“ Nonsense,” protested the good-natured ; “ Man- 
nering and Carew are such friends.” 

That autumn Carew shot the grouse of his father- 
in-law, but he went south alone, because his wife 
could not accompany him to help shoot Manncring’s 
pheasants. 


CHAPTER XXVIIL 

Meanwhile Greville, since his defeat of the pre- 
ceding summer, had sulked in his political tent, aloof 
from his allies, hut the country had been exasperated 
by several blunders in foreign policy on the part of the 
Government, and at last the late Prime Minister felt 
himself compelled to take council with Carew as to 
the best means of making party-capital out of the * 
opportunity, and the breach between them was mended. 

A debate consequently arose in the House, in which 
the Government’s whole conduct of public affairs was 
solemnly arraigned by the patriots on the other side. 
Carew once more signally distinguished himself. With 
the joy of battle still tingling in his veins he walked 
home one June night, under the serene summer stars, 
to find that a son had been born to his wife. 

The doctor, who was still there, was reassuring. 

“ He’s a fine little chap,” he said, “ and Mrs. Carew 
is very proud of him. Go in and see her for a few 
minutes. She has been asking for you. She is rather 
nervous and excitable, and must be kept quiet.” 


CORRUPTION. 


223 


Carew entered the dimly-lighted room, and beheld 
his wife, pale and expectant, with eyes alight with 
strange, pathetic gleams. 

“ Paul, dear,” she said, “ it’s a boy. Are you not glad ? ” 

“ Yes, very,” he said, gently holding her hand. The 
slumbering child under the lace and draperies of the 
bassinette, the young mother with the wistful eyes, 
the quiet room, the white-capped nurse, had suddenly 
moved him into a world of tender things. An hour 
ago his friends in the House had been cheering him 
wildly as he made point after point in his attack on 
the Government ; but here, where there was peace 
after terror and pain, a new spark of life had been 
added to the world of men to be a vehicle perhaps for 
transmitting his energies and ambitions to the future. 
It was another hostage to fortune. 

“ You must keep quiet,” he said. “ They only let 
me in on that condition.” 

“ But you must see the baby. 0 Paul, he’s beauti- 
ful ! Isn’t it wonderful ? Ilis little pink hands are all 
twisted up, and he has the tiniest and sweetest face ! 
Nurse ! please show Mr. Carew baby.” 

The nurse moved back the curtain of the bassinette, 
where the child was asleep beneath delicate lambswool 
blankets, pink and wrinkled with the antenatal cares 
that haunt the faces of the newly-born. 

“ He’s a beautiful child, sir, and has a big, strong 
frame.” 

“ Can you see his fingers, Paul ? ” said the weak 

voice from the bed. 

15 


224 : 


CORRUPTION. 


“Yes — all curled up like unfolded leaves.” 

“Yes, aren’t they beautiful? And his eyes are 
going to be just like yours. But you mustn’t wake 
him. Babies do nothing but sleep and grow. That’s 
all they have to do, isn’t it, nurse ? ” 

“ Yes, madam.” 

Nurse covered the child again, who lay in a slumber 
so soft and deep that the breath of his tiny life was 
scarcely perceptible. 

“ Now, good night,” said Carew, “ be good and sleep 
like your son, and you’ll be strong again in a day or 
two.” 

As he stooped to kiss her cheek, still moist with the 
dews of her travail and fears, she whispered, “ Per- 
haps, Paul, you will be able to love me better than ever 
now.” 

Then he moved quietly out on the landing, and 
went down to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Muir was 
waiting for him. 

An hour later, when all the house was still, and all 
the servants save the nurses at rest, Carew went quietly 
to his room. The silence of the dimly-lighted landing 
was broken by the wail of his infant son — the petulant 
cries of a young animal in helpless distress. “ Perhaps, 
after all, that is the best criticism on life,” he reflected. 
As he listened, a thought he strove to stifle struggled to 
take shape. But in spite of his effort it grew luminous 
until its edge stood out against the dark background of 
his consciousness. If the wish that moulded itself in 
spite of his volition had been realisable, his child would 


CORRUPTION. 


225 


liave had another mother. For once, but for that min- 
ute only, Carew was ashamed. 

Amongst the first to congratulate the Carews came 
Mrs. Mannering, who was allowed to see the mother, 
on the pleasant path of convalescence, and the child, 
which pinched her heart with jealous regrets. 

“ Isn’t it a darling ? ” asked the mother, who wished 
other women to see her triumph. 

Beatrice tried hard to be good-natured, and ac- 
quiesced. 

She would have liked to be alone with it, to undress 
it, and see its tiny limbs moving with the first impulses 
of the life it owed to the man she ruled, but who in re- 
turn held her destinies in his hand. 

“ I never knew the young of the human race would 
be so small and so feeble,” said she, after a minute’s 
silent inspection. 

“ He isn’t small, is he, nurse? ” said the mother. 

“ No, madam, quite a big boy.” 

“I mean babies in general, Connie,” Beatrice re- 
plied. “I have had no experience with them. Ah, 
baby ! baby ! some day you will grow into a big man, 
and be called Paul Carew, and go forth and conquer. I 
wonder if I were a fairy godmother what blessing I 
should drop into your pretty cradle ? ” 

“ Make him grow up like Paul — only ” 

“Only what, Connie? Paul, with a differ- 
ence ? ” 

“ Yes. No ; no — Paul almost exactly as he is.” 

“ I read your wish, Connie. You want a softer Paul, 


226 


CORRUPTION. 


a tenderer Paul, but then lie would not be so strong a 
Paul.” 

“ Noj Paul just as lie is, and ITl be content v/ith my 
son,” she said. “ But don’t you wish 3^011 had a son, 
too, Beatrice?” 

“ I’m always in doubt. Perhaps I have given 
enough hostages to fortune without bearing children. 
But good-bye, Connie. Let it console you to know that 
you look prettier than ever.” 

Then, in all the splendours of an elaborate summer 
costume, Beatrice left the young mother to her new de- 
light, thinking, “ If I had had a child I might have been 
a better woman.” 

In the drawing-room waited Garew, listening for her 
step. 

“ What do you think of him ? ” 

“ Babies to my mind are the most remarkable evi- 
dence of the Darwinian theory. I never see one a few 
days old without being reminded of the lowly origin- of 
our race.” 

“I don’t believe you,” he said, reading her face; 
“ you were reminded of something very different.” 

“ Well, let me forget it and enjoy the distinction of 
being childless in a prolific world. She is delighted, 
and pities me. I hope she will not be disappointed. 
However, whatever happens, she can make a new world 
all for herself now. Ministries can come in and out, 
the big loom of time roar like a hurricane outside her 
nursery, but she will be quite happy, seeing her son 
learning not to crawl on four legs like his early ances- 


CORRUPTION. 


227 


tors. Alas ! alas ! I am denied a woman’s most mag- 
nificent hobby. There is a room at Elcourt still called 
the nursery. I sit there sometimes and wonder what it 
would look like full of other people’s children. If you 
want a godmother you may always rely on me. A few 
vicarious sins will not alter my balance. When little 
Paul is older I v/ill send him Gerald’s old rocking- 
horse wdiich still enjoys a certain precedence in the an- 
cestral lumber-room. But I must return to the things 
of this world. Prince Ferdinand has sent me his box 
at the opera. If you can escape from these delightful 
domesticities, come too ! Gerald will be on duty, but 
he will fly away to his club if you will come to his rescue 
and mine.” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

The man who strides along in the breeze and sun- 
shine of the hill top rarely suspects the lurking and 
meaner human insects in the marshy valley which watch 
his movements with envy against the wide horizon of 
the sky. Xeither the temper nor the morals of Oarew’s 
valet had improved in the last twelve months, although 
the efficiency of his personal services to his master had 
not appreciably deteriorated. In the servant’s hall he 
bragged of the claims he had on his employer’s grati- 
tude. 

Mrs. Carew was served by a pretty lady’s-maid, an 
ancillary Helen, around whom moved more than one of 


228 


CORRUPTION. 


those jealous forces that circulate permanently in the 
basements of big and opulent houses. 

One hot and unlucky July evening, when Carew was 
addressing his constituents at Beauvis, these conflict- 
ing forces became explosive, and a “ scene ” occurred. 
Bates, who had availed himself of his master’s absence 
to intoxicate himself, was rude to Helen ; the stalwart 
second footman, her other admirer, interposed ; the 
valet resented the interference, and was finally knocked 
down in the altercation. The butler, whom Bates re- 
garded as a tyrant and usurper, sided with the footman, 
and the splutterings of the domestic volcano ended in 
shaking the whole house. 

Helen, in tears, told her mistress that, “ after what 
had happened,” it was impossible for her to continue 
to live in the same family as Bates. “ Ho self-respect- 
ing young woman could.” 

Mrs. Carew, absorbed in watching the simple career 
of her six-weeks-old son, and, finding herself unable to 
cope with the violence of the storm, told her maid that 
impartial justice should be administered when Mr. 
Carew returned. 

When he did, on the following evening, his wife 
took him solemnly into the study and unfolded the 
simple story of the kitchen discord. 

“ Your valet. Bates,” she said, “ appears to be a 
dreadful man. He insults the maids, he drinks, and 
for months has been upsetting them all downstairs. 
Of course, he must go.” 

Since his marriage, Carew had forgotten his 


CORRUPTION. 


229 

valet, save as a brasher of coats and a polisher of 
boots. 

Then Bates was summoned before his master, and 
appeared impenitent and with a black eye. 

“ What do you mean by getting drunk, kissing the 
maids, and upsetting the house ? ” said Carew sternly. 

“ That big blackguard Roberts, the second footman, 
struck me in the eye, an’ I’ll summons him for assault,” 
returned Bates. 

Carew reflected a moment, then he took a five 
pound note from his pocket-book, and said, “ You will 
leave this evening. Here are five pounds because you 
liave been in my service for some years, not because you 
deserve it. How, go ! ” 

Carew’s angry eye daunted Bates, who went with- 
out firing the volley of rancour engendered by humilia- 
tion and defeat. Half an hour later he drove away 
inside a four-wheeled cab with two big boxes outside, 
revolving sinister things in his aggrieved breast. 

Two days later, Carew received a letter dated from 
a street in Pimlico, which said : “ Sir, — A friend of 
mine is wishful to dispose of the lease of a nice little 
lodging-house. The premium asked is £200. In con- 
sideration of my faithful services and the confidence 
and trust you have reposed in me, may I ask you to 
advance me the necessary sum? — Your faithful servant, 
Peter Bates.” 

The finger of the blackmailer was heavy on the 
note. The words “ confidence ” and “ trust ” were un- 
derscored three times with red ink. 


230 


CORRUPTION. 


Carew, who felt he could afford to despise the 
veiled threat, burnt the note, and in a week had almost 
forgotten that he had ever received it. 

Meanwhile the London season was running down 
to its August grave ; and while Mrs. Carew w’as nursing 
her baby, Mrs. Mannering was successfully cherishing 
her social ambitions. They met less frequently now, 
and Carew more rarely escorted his wife into a world 
which ceased to interest her. The session had proved 
an exciting one, and when the grouse were nearly ready 
for the guns of legislators, the House was still stolidly 
sitting. All London that season had been “ cadg- 
ing ” for invitations to Konigsfontein, the famous 
estate of Prince Ferdinand in the Austrian Tyrol. 
The Mannerings were among the first to be asked, 
for Beatrice had not cajoled his Serene Highness in 
vain. 

“ You can’t get away from the House,” she said ; 
“ but, all the same, I think it would be a pity for me 
to miss the chance. I can go with Lady Delafosse. I 
must help her marry her pretty daughter to the prince’s 
nephew.” 

Mannering, who felt that his wife’s social soarings 
w^ere removing her further and further from the hum- 
drum sphere of politics, men, horses, and sport in 
which he lived, made no serious opposition ; it all 
seemed the natural conquest of her bow and 
spear. 

“ You are forgetting your old friends for these 
German serene highnesses and Kussian grand dukes. 


CORRUPTION. 


231 


The only one you seem to remember is Paul Carew, 
and you can’t take him with you.” 

She laughed, and said, “ Blood’s thicker than 
water, I suppose ; besides, he is not so old-fashioned as 
you are. It is only dull and plain w^omen who have 
time for the domestic virtues. You can’t expect a 
country parson’s daughter to refuse to visit a German 
serene highness merely because her husband can’t 
accompany her.” 

Mannering good-naturedly admitted his wife’s logic. 

A few days later, when the Morning Post informed 
its readers that Mrs. Mannering, wife of the member 
for Dawton, had left town, with a number of other 
distinguished ladies and gentlemen, to visit his Serene 
Highness the Prince Ferdinand at Konigsfontein in 
the Austrian Tyrol, society merely winked at itself. 

Beatrice forgot to call on Mrs. Carew before she 
left town, but one evening when she was studying 
moonlight effects with his Serene Highness of Konigs- 
fontein, her husband dined with her. The two simple, 
kindly natures were sympathetic and friendly. Man- 
nering liked to hear “ all about the boy ” and to 
retail the lobby gossip that Paul kept to himself. 

Carew sent a note from the Club to say he was 
detained with Mr. Greville ; so the two friends dined 
placidly alone, as quiet, and not too clever, people may 
who have no taste for epigrams and are untormented 
by corrosive ambitions. 

Mrs. Carew was “ sorry ” for Mr. Mannering. She 
perceived that he w^as subsiding into the position of 


232 


CORRUPTION. 


“ Mrs. Mannering’s husband,” just as she knew it was 
her fate to be identified as “ Carew’s wife.” The 
philosophy she was acquiring had taught her that this 
must be the destiny of unbrilliant men and women 
who tie themselves to the swift tails of the social 
meteors that light up society’s sky. 

She took her old friend — for she had known him 
for some years before her marriage — to see baby, who 
folded his pink palm trustfully round the big index 
finger Mannering gave him. 

“ I envy you your pretty boy,” he said to her when 
they left the nursery. 

She, suspecting the regrets besetting him, an- 
swered — 

“ You shall be his godfather.” 

“ You must get a grander one,” he said, smiling, for 
he perceived she really did look upon her proposal in 
the light of a comfort to his childlessness. 

“I would rather have you than anybody. Mr. 
Eliot of Frank’s regiment wants to be the other.” 

Mannering knew young Eliot was believed to wor- 
ship Mrs. Carew from afar. 

“ You should catch a Serene Highness or a prime 
minister,” said Mannering ironically. 

“ 1 don’t like Serene Highnesses well enough to ask 
them favours. So you and Percy Eliot must stand for 
him.” 

“All right, Mrs. Carew, if you wish it,” said 
Mannering. 

“ I should have liked your wife to have been one of 


CORRUPTION. 


233 


his godmothers,” said she thoughtfully, ‘‘ for she is so 
old a friend of Paul, only she doesn’t take much inter- 
est in children.” 

“ Perhaps she is disappointed we have none of our 
own,” said he apologetically, recalling a dozen cynical 
reflections of his wife’s on the appearance of the Carew 
baby. 

The servant announced dinner, and Manneriug 
handed her to the dining-room, where the flower- 
strewn table was laid for five guests. 

“ I expected my brother and Percy Eliot from 
Aldershot, but they were detained on duty,” she ex- 
plained, “and Paul, as you know, is dining with Mr. 
Greville at the Reform Club. So I’m afraid you have 
only me to talk to.” 

Mannering’s heart was rather sore that evening, and 
the kind and guileless little woman, in all the pride of 
first motherhood, soothed him. The atmosphere he 
breathed was pure and fragrant after the heavy scents 
of the “smart” circles into which he followed his 
wife, like an honest but shortsighted watchdog, “on 
principle.” 

“ Have you heard from Beatrice ? ” she asked. 

“ Ho ; she doesn’t shine as a correspondent, at least 
to me. But I met Delafosse at the Club yesterday, and 
he said he had heard from his wife. There are great 
doings. The opera company from Vienna gave a 
performance in the prince’s private theatre the other 
evening, and there are to be all manner of ‘ swagger ’ 
junkettings.” 


CORRUPTION. 


23i 


“ Are you sorry you couldn’t go too ? ” 

“ I don’t think I should have been in it quite except 
at the ‘shoots.’ I don’t love his Serene Highness so 
blindly as some of them do. The princess is reputed 
to have anything but a pleasant time. His Serene 
Highness has a temper which he works olf on her. He 
leaves her at Konigsfontein when he comes to London. 
Delafosse says that is why he enjoys the change so 
much.” 

But he checked himself in the story that was sug- 
gesting itself to his mind, for he had left Delafosse 
exulting in his own temporary freedom from the do- 
mestic duties. The story would have amused his wife, 
but he felt Mrs. Carew would miss its humour. 

“ I never see Prince Ferdinand without feeling sorry 
for his wife,” said Mrs. Carew. 

“ There are tales about everybody,” he replied, con- 
scious some of them were not remote from his owm 
hearth; “but I think one may pity his wife without 
maligning the husband.” 

“ I wonder if Beatrice will like the princess?” 

“ She manages to get on with everybody.” 

“ Perhaps she makes a point of it ? ” suggested Mrs. 
Carew. 

“ Yes ; she likes to be popular.” 

“We all do, only we all haven’t her powers of win- 
ning it. I sometimes wonder what we shall be all like 
by the time baby comes of age.” 

“ That is one of those forecasts which Beattie says 
‘ make her shudder.’ ” 


CORRUPTION. 


235 


“ No pretty woman likes to think what she may be 
at fifty,” said Mrs. Carew. “ But I am sure I shan’t 
care now.” 

Mannering smiled, perceiving the comfort of 
“ baby ” hidden under the vagueness of “ now.” 

“ The future’s pleasant enough if we haven’t ex- 
hausted our balance before we are forty,” said Manner- 
iug philosophically. 

“ Then baby will be seventeen,” said Mrs. Carew, 
finding the answer to a sum in mental arithmetic with 
the readiness of a prepared task. “ What will Paul be 
then ? ” 

“ Prime Minister perhaps. President of the Republic 
possibly.” 

“ And you will be Chancellor of the Exchequer.” 

“ Or Master of the President’s Horse,” said he, 
smiling. 

Then they talked of Paul’s prospect — a subject of 
never-failing interest to his wife — and when Carew 
returned from his interview with Mr. Greville, he met 
Mannering at his doorstep, lighting a cigar. 

“ Sorry I couldn’t turn up to dine, Mannering, and 
hope you haven’t been bored.” 

“ Bored ? I should think not. As if your wife could 
bore any good fellow. You have all the luck, Carew. 
We have been building castles in the air about you, and 
settled that I’m to be godfather to the boy.” 

“Have you heard from Konigsfontein?” asked 
Carew, who had a letter from Beatrice in his pocket. 

“ Not a syllable. Good-night.” 


236 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

Mrs. Makneri^ig stayed until late in August at 
Konigsfontein, and then went to Homburg with Lady 
Lelafosse, where Carew joined them. He wanted rest 
and change after the session, he said, and “a course of 
waters as a hygienic experiment.” His wife found it 
impossible to leave the baby which she imported to 
Scotland early in August on a visit to her father. 

Meanwhile Mannering had not been blind to the 
change that had taken place in his wife. The atmos- 
phere of refined devergondage into which she had 
almost imperceptibly glided had filled him with mis- 
givings. The receipt of two anonymous letters finally 
converted the flickering suspicions into a horrible fear 
of the worst. “ Keep your eye on Mrs. Mannering,” 
said the first letter ; “ she is deceiving you. I don’t 
wish to see an honest sportsman and gentleman bluffed 
by his worthless wife and false friend.” 

Mannering contemptuously burnt the note. A few 
days later a second came. “ Keep your eye on your 
wife and Mr. Paul Carew, M. P. Ask her who gave 
her the diamond pendant.” This second letter, which 
certainly showed some knowledge of his wife’s jewellery, 
he kept. He was a man of the world, cherishing few 
illusions. Coupled with the receipt of this letter, 
Carew’s departure for Homburg seemed peculiar. 
However, it was easy to inquire at the jeweller’s. 
Probably they would set his mind at rest. He made a 


CORRUPTION. 237 

rough sketch of the pendant, and went to Bensing’s, 
where he was well known. 

“I saw a lady wearing a pendant something like 
this,” he said to the shop assistant ; “ have you anything 
like it ? ” 

The young man recognised it at once. 

“ I think we sold one like that to Mr. Carew,” he 
said ; “ but I will look.” 

Then he consulted some books. “ It was purchased 
the day after you chose a diamond bracelet for Mrs. 
Mannering,” he said. Mannering well remembered the 
date. It was his wife’s birthday. They had met Carew 
in Bond Street, and shown him the jewel. 

“ Had you a duplicate of the pendant? ” he asked, a 
host of sickening misgivings invading his heart. 

“ No. There was only one, sir. It was made from 
our own design. We can reproduce it for you, if you 
like.” 

“ At what price ? ” 

“ About £250.” 

“ Thank you ; I’ll think about it.” 

Then Mannering walked into the sultry August 
streets, staggered by the weight of suspicion. Carew 
had either given it to his wife, or the pendant must 
have been copied elsewhere. If Carew had given it to 
his wife, why should there have been any mystery 
about it? 

The infernal piece of jewellery had become an in- 
strument of horrible torture. He glanced back through 
the experiences of his London life, and remembered 


238 


CORRUPTION. 


half a dozen good fellows who had been dragged through 
dishonour and the worst mud of scandal by frail wives 
and false friends. But then “ Beattie was not such a 
fool,” nor could ho believe Carew was villain enough. 
“ But will not a man do any mean thing where a woman 
is concerned?” was the next reflection. 

Then his recollections began to scourge him. Once 
when Carew and himself had discussed the morals gen- 
erally believed to prevail in certain families of distinc- 
tion where it was an open secret the husband had only 
a nominal sliare in his wife’s favours, Carew had 
laughed, and declared that the arrangement was a very 
practical one, and only a little in advance of the average 
opinion on the subject. There was, he had argued, a 
prospect of polyandry directly the rights of property 
were questioned. Then Mannering reflected that the 
morality of the fast set in wdiich his wdfe had proved so 
comjflete a success was of a “ go-as-you-please ” charac- 
ter. “ The Divorce Court has been pretty busy among 
them,” he thought grimly. He returned home, where 
he found the servants preparing for his expected depart- 
ure to Elcourt, wrapping the furniture in ghostly 
sheets, and robbing the rooms of all their life and col- 
our. The charming boudoir, wdth the pleasant conser- 
vatory, where his wife used to sit, now looked almost 
sepulchral. IIow happy he had been there only a few 
days ago ! But why not ? He would be happy again 
there. The last time they had been there together 'was 
on the morning he had accidentally seen the bill for this 
accursed pendant. She went to bed with a headache. 


CORRUPTION. 


239 


Why should she have a headache? His memory, now 
morbidly active, reminded him that a sudden fright 
often gave her one. Then he could hear Carew’s 
familiar voice. “ Every step we take in politics, like 
every step we take in life, should be guided by rea- 
son. Evidence and probabilities, gentlemen, are the 
only threads by which we can hope to be led out of the 
dark.” The voice now seemed the voice of a liar and a 
hypocrite. Carew had uttered this sentiment without a 
blush at the last Dawton election. Of evidence there 
was nothing, of probabilities and superstitions there 
was a tangled maze. The gift of the pendant amounted 
to nothing, except that they both had lied about it. 
But that might be easily explicable. “ Coincidence will 
account for a devil of a lot of things,” he said to him- 
self, clutching eagerly at every straw of comfort. But 
the servants entered the boudoir to complete their task 
of shrouding the pictures, and Mannering went down to 
his own room, as yet uninvaded. On the wall was a 
beautiful painting of his wife in an oval frame. Her 
bare arms and shoulders, her brown bronze hair, her 
eyes, lustrous and deep, emerged in all the charm of 
w'omanhood and delicate art from the canvas. Behind 
the seductive power of her beauty, Mannering, for the 
first time, fancied he saw something provocative. Did 
the horrible suspicions that now possessed and racked 
his mind enable him to read her character with a keener 
insight ? Her years of friendly indifference to him, fol- 
lowed by the years of friendly toleration, could now be 

interpreted with a difference. There was the dim Carew 
16 


240 


COKRUPTION. 


cousinship, the early years of close intimacy before Man- 
nering came on the scene, the man’s extraordinary in- 
fluence over her, her reflex power over him. The more 
he thought, the blacker grew his doubt. “ Human 
nature being what it is,” he thought, “ the chances are 
all against their innocence.” But why had he never 
been suspicious before ? Merely because he was blind. 
His easy-going nature, now on the slope of jealousy, 
rushed away with him. Soon he reached a point in his 
misery when he doubted the power of either of them to 
resist the temptation they had done nothing to avoid. 
His incriminating theories were the only ones that his 
arguments could not destroy. He had found a key with 
which to read the past. Trifles scarcely noticed, swift 
whisperings in doorways, absences from home which 
he had been too careless to regard, now put on the lurid 
colours of guilt. Suddenly he found himself hating 
Carew. “ If it is true. I’ll shoot him,” he muttered to 
himself, sitting at his table with his face hidden in his 
hands. Then he remembered that in real life adulterers 
are dealt with otherwise. Shooting is melodramatic. 
“ Ho ; I’ll ruin him.” But the picture of Carew’s com- 
plete political and social destruction brought him no 
comfort. “ She would have loved me if it had not been 
for him,” he thought. “ I trusted her because I loved 
her. I knew she always thought me a fool. My God ! 
she was right.” 

Then he made a desperate effort to believe in the hy- 
pothesis of their innocence. The suspense was unbear- 
able. Why not go over to Homburg at once and accuse 


CORRUPTION. 


241 


her? Better wait until he had stronger grounds. A 
jealous husband with a bundle of suspicions, and not an 
ounce of evidence, is a farcical character. The scoundrel 
who had been writing him anonymous letters must be 
discovered first. 

Generally this sort of ruffian found it more remu- 
nerative to blackmail the adulterer. Mannering ex- 
amined the writing. It appeared to be disguised. The 
envelope bore the S. W. postmark. There was nothing 
to be got out of that. It might have been written by 
some mischievous servant. The intrigues which 
brought their actors into the Divorce Court generally 
were unearthed by servants. Round and round, the 
unhappy man’s mind revolved in circles of rage and 
pain. Now he almost decided to hurry to his lawyers, 
and set in motion all the secret machinery that existed 
to discover the truth, next he determined to watch 
himself. He took his revolver from its case and looked 
at it, put it away again, and called himself a melodra- 
matic fool for thinking of it. Finally he summoned the 
powers of advertisement to his aid. It took this form : 
“If the anonymous correspondent who wrote to a 
gentleman at a Pall Mall club on the I7th and 24th 
inst. will communicate more fully, the advertiser will be 
found both grateful and generous.” 

On the following day this acute cry of distress 
appeared in the “ agony columns ” of all the London 
papers. 


242 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

Three weeks later, Carew joined the Muirs in 
Scotland. Beatrice Mannering returned to Elcourt, 
where her husband’s silence and absence caused her 
some anxiety. She would have written to Carew, but 
she was cautious, and they had exchanged few letters. 

Meanwhile the advertisement had answered its 
purpose. Bates read it, and wrote again. Mannering 
handed his letter to a great firm of solicitors of unique 
experience in matrimonial suits. In ten days’ time 
enough evidence of his wife’s guilt was forthcoming to 
enable them to “ advise ” their client that he had a clear 
case for divorce. 

Soon the first gun was fired. One bright morning 
in early September, the third after her arrival at 
Elcourt, Beatrice received a letter from Mannering’s 
lawyers, informing her that it was his intention to 
commence a suit for divorce against her, that Mr. Paul 
Carew was the co-respondent, and requesting her to 
favour them with the address of her own legal advisers, 
on whom the petition might be served. Until her 
arrangements were made their client placed Elcourt at 
her disposal, but requested that all communications to 
him might come through them. 

For a quarter of an hour she sat overwhelmed under 
the blow, the letter in her hand. The swiftness of the 
stroke blinded her. But soon she realised that her 
reign was over, her kingdom overthrown. 


CORRUPTION. 


243 


She rose from the breakfast-table, where the red 
and white roses raised their fragrant heads on long 
stalks from a china vase, and saw their loveliness and 
smelt their perfume as through a mist of nightmares. 
With a face white as her morning dress, she walked 
slowly from the room through the open Urench 
windows into the sunny lawn. The long gossamers 
were shining in threads of silver, the leaves rustling 
with the first crispness of autumn ; a robin sang plain- 
tively on a branch of the oak just touched with the 
first gold of the waning year. It was a day intended 
for innocent happiness. There was no place in it for a 
tragedy outside a guilty human heart. 

The gardener touched his hat, and tended the 
bright flower beds ; from the park the little Scotch 
cattle — her husband’s favourites and hers — raised their 
shaggy heads in untroubled content. Never had 
Elcourt seemed so peaceful or so friendly. The sleek, 
round hills of the familiar horizon she loved looked 
down on her with a host of sunny memories trooping 
down to greet her from their velvet flanks. 

The bright banks of flowers where the bees indo- 
lently murmured were her creation. She had worked 
her will on the landscape. “We agreed about flowers 
and trees,” she thought. “He always let me do as I 
liked ; now he is going to divorce me and ruin Paul.” 

She felt no resentment against him, but only extraor- 
dinary pity for herself, that she must be driven from 
an Eden, where she had asked too much, and hoped to 
reign like a queen who obeys no laws but her own. 


244 


CORRUPTION. 


But could her husband divorce her? She was 
aware that the intrigue had left a hundred minute 
traces, and that the discovery of one would lead natu- 
rally to that of another. She knew, too, that Manner- 
insf would not commence a suit unless the evidence his 

O 

lawyers had collected were convincing. 

“ They must know all ! ” she said to herself, press- 
ing her slender white hands together in despair. “ Oh, 
sweet flowers, lovely trees, good, kind hills,” she cried, 
apostrophising the landscape, “ I understood you, you 
understood me. But now my reign is gone.” 

She leaned over the stone balustrade and gazed 
across the park. A lark flew up in the clear heavens, 
singing with triumjohant throat. 

“ He is a pagan too, like Paul and me. The differ- 
ence is that he has no debt to pay. What is to be 
done ? ” 

She decided to leave Elcourt for London ; but flrst 
of all, to telegraph to Paul. “ He brought me to it ; 
he must rescue me from it. He made me what I am ; 
he must make the best of me now. But it is awful for 
him. Such a career ! such a fall ! He is like Lucifer, 
son of the morning. ITl tell him that ! I fancy I see 
him frown. What a smash the awful business will 
make! Poor little Mrs. Carew with her baby! poor 
little paper boat on a turbid stream. But, oh ! it’s worse 
for me. No one that ever was born can feel so acutely 
as 1.” 

And she believed it, because she was a non-creative 
artist with eyes that sucked in beauty from all she 


CORRUPTION. 


245 

beheld, and senses that extracted impressions with 
sponge-like tenacity. 

Then, wondering at her approaching fate, she sat on 
a garden-chair, whilst the big dragon-flies flashed by 
her hair that gleamed in the sunshine. 

“ We can go abroad. In two years he must marry 
me ; then we can commence again. But where is the 
money to come from ? ” 

She was saturated with love of luxury. Ugliness, 
squalor, discomfort terrifled her. She was fresh from 
a palace, where princes had kissed her hand, and royal 
dukes given her bouquets. She had been lying on 
rose leaves, lulled to content by a thousand subtle 
flatteries, and — now? The husband she had deceived 
was to have his revenue. She shuddered when she 

O 

thought of some of the evidence which might be 
brought against her. The only dignified course was 
retreat to the Continent with Paul; admission of her 
offence to her husband ; an undefended case and tem- 
porary oblivion. “ But I don’t think Paul has much 
money, and I have scarcely a hundred pounds to my 
credit.” 

After a while, she rose, and glanced once more 
round at the landscape. 

“ Good-bye, flowers ; good-bye, trees and hills and 
kindly beasts and living things that once were mine. 
When they tell you I am a wicked woman I know 
you will not believe them, for I am one with you, and 
fulfil my destiny.” 

Then she went to the stables, to the stall of the 


246 


CORRUPTION. 


handsome thoroughbred mare her husband had given 
her soon after they were married, and which she had 
ridden ever since. The pretty beast whinnied at her 
approach, and she put her face for a moment against 
its soft muzzle. 

“ I shall never ride you again, Freda,” she said. 
“ For, if I took you away, I couldn’t keep you. Good- 
bye ! We have had some splendid gallops across the 
Downs. When they tell you I am a wicked woman, 
don’t believe them. For you, too, will understand me.” 

Then the groom, who had seen her enter the stable, 
came, and said — 

“ Will 5^ou ride Freda this morning, ma’am? ” 

“No, thank you, Robert. I shall never ride her 
again.” 

The man started. 

“ No, madam? ” 

“ No. I am going away for a long time.” 

She returned to the house, the groom watching her 
in wonder and doubt. 

Then, one after the other, this strange being, half 
bacchante and half true woman, passed through the 
rooms of the stately old house. The wooden portraits 
of the Mannering ancestors scowled on her in the 
truculent discomfort of their costumes, but she in- 
cluded them in her farewell. Last of all, she stood 
before her father’s portrait, which hung in the library. 
His conduct had not been exemplary, but he looked like 
a gentleman. 

“ You died seven years ago, sir,” she said, standing 


CORRUPTION. 


247 


respectfully before the canvas, “ and it is well you are 
not alive to-day, for you would scarcely be proud of 
me. I am going to wear a white sheet and hold a 
candle. Some day, perhaps I shall have a wall of my 
own to hang you upon. Till then, you must stay here 
as Gerald’s guest. Now good-bye.” 

As she moved away, she remembered with a shiver 
that she was “frightfully alone,” with no one to fight 
her battles except Paul, now a pariah like herself. 

Then she went to her room and rang for her 
maid. 

“ Mary,” she said, “ I want you to pack all my 
trunks. I am going by the 1.30 train to London.” 

“ Yes, madam. To Hill Street, I suppose.” 

“No; to the Grosvenor Hotel.” 

“ Do you take me, madam ? ” 

“No; after to-day you will not be in my service. 
Possibly Mr. Mannering may wish you to continue 
here. I know he likes the way you arrange the 
fiowers.” 

“ But, madam ” 

“You will hear all about it in good time, Mary. 
I’m sorry to lose you, but for a while I must be my 
own maid.” 

Then the easy tears began to fall from the girl’s 
eyes, but Beatrice thought it wiser not to see them and 
braced herself for the first step. She dressed herself 
for travelling, went to the village post-office, and sent 
the following telegram to Carew : “ The crash has 
come. I go to the Grosvenor Hotel. Come.” 


248 


CORRUPTION. 


Two hours later, the coachman drove his mistress 
to the station for the last time. The old butler said, 
“ Poor Master Gerald ! ” only it was to himself. 

Behind, in the home she had disgraced, and where 
the scandal was suspected, there spread a widening 
circle of regret to fill the place she was abandoning 
with a heart full of tears. 

The butler telegraphed to Mannering to say that 
Mrs. Mannering had left Elcourt for the Grosvenor 
Hotel, and Mannering, who had determined never to 
see his wife again, was carried away by an uncon- 
trollable wave of jealousy. She had gone to meet 
Carew. Evidently they were prepared. Once more 
he thought of his revolver. “ I’m not the sort of man 
to blow a fellow’s brain’s out, however big a villain he 
is,” he thought. Then a wiser counsel prevailed. “ The 
only thing they can do is to go abroad together. 
Carew will hardly be fool enough to enter a de- 
fence.” 

But the unhappy man felt an unconquerable desire 
to see her again at all risks, and at four o’clock, like 
one who walks in his sleep, he stood in the hall of the 
hotel hearing the roar of trains through the dull misery 
that hung about him like a cloak. 

The halls and corridors were nearly empty. He 
wandered from room to room seeking her with a 
beating heart, lacking courage to ask for her at the 
bureau, and expecting to meet her with Carew at every 
furtive step he took. What should he do? Thrash 
him? That would mean a brutal and useless brawl. 


CORRUPTION. 


249 

Carew was as powerful and vigorous as himself, and 
physically fearless. 

From room to room he vainly wandered, till at last 
he saw her dejectedly descending the last flight of 
stairs. Unseen under the shadow of a pillar, he 
watched her, marking the change in her face. He 
stept forward and they met. 

“ Gerald ! ” 

At first she thought he had come to make terms, 
perhaps to forgive her. She had friends whose hus- 
bands had “forgiven” them under similar circum- 
stances, who were rather proud of their position. But 
his face told her he had not come for that. All the 
healthy colour was gone; his eyes were dim and 
sunken from want of sleep. They looked at one 
another in silence unable to speak, she remembering 
that he had never spoken a rough word to her since he 
had known her. How there was something in his 
face, not menace, but sorrow and suffering, that made 
her shrink. 

“ Is he here ? ” he asked. 

“ Ho.” 

“ Come,” he said. They left the hall and entered 
the ill-lighted corridor, and stood together in a recess. 

“ Have you anything to say, any excuse ? ” 

“ I have little to say, and no excuse. You won’t 
believe me, but I am sorry for the pain I have given 
you. You were always kind — and generous.” 

“ I tried to be. Hever mind that. How long has it 
been going on ? ” 


250 


CORRUPTION. 


“ It began the year before we were married.” 

“ If I did my duty I should shoot him. I meant to 
when I first knew,” he said. 

She had dreaded some such horror, but the lawyer’s 
letter had dispelled it. 

“ That would be a stupid thing. We are not char- 
acters in an Adelphi play. Come in here. There are 
some things I should like you to know, now it is all 
over between us. The lawyer’s letter I received this 
morning has cancelled all obligations. I need not de- 
ceive you any longer. Reproaches are waste of time. 
You are a good and kind man ; as a friend I always 
liked you ; I have treated you badly ! ” 

In a gloomy reading-room, at that moment deserted, 
they sat dov/n on either side of a narrow writing- 
table. 

“ He and I grew up together, as you know. I was 
always fond of him. When I was about sixteen and 
he at college, I used to think he would marry me. 
Always when he was home he made love to me. We 
ran about the woods together, and there was no one to 
look after me — properly, I mean. A few days after I 
met you at that ball at Exeter, he told me that we 
could never be married because we were too poor, and 
he persuaded me that I must try to marry a rich man ; 
so I decided to marry you if you would ask me. You 
know my secret history since. Paul Carew and I were 
too covetous. We wanted everything. We robbed and 
pillaged through society like brigands. How we are 
found out. The verdict will be ‘ guilty.’ His fate is 


CORRUPTION. 


251 


tragic. We have in a way been prepared for this, al- 
though we never expected we should really be found 
out. We put our heads in the sands like wicked 
ostriches, and so long as it was worth no one’s while to 
hunt us we were comfortable enough. It is a ridiculous 
position as well as a tragic one. How did you get the 
clues ? ” 

“ The servants as usual.” 

“ One is always pince-d like that.” 

She was rapidly adjusting herself to the change. 

“ I suppose the courts will give you a divorce all 
right. Then perhaps you’ll marry again. If you do, 
don’t let your new wife spoil the garden at Elcourt by 
altering the flower beds. I like that place. I wept — 
you will hardly believe it — when I left it this morning. 
And now, if you have nothing to say, you had better 
leave me. There is such an official as a Queen’s Proc- 
tor. Oh, I know more about these cases than you ex- 
pect, and our talk here savours of collusion.” 

She had almost fallen into her old habit of chaffing 
him. 

“ You have no heart,” he said. 

“ None. It has atrophied. I have only feeling. I . 
have learnt to control that.” 

“ I despise myself for ever having loved you.” 

“ Others thought it evidence of your intelligence. 
How strange it seems to be perfectly candid ! ” 

“ You are rotten to the core, so is Carew.” 

“ We are the bad children of a bad century, that 
is all ! ” 


252 


CORRUPTION. 


“ You don’t even see what a fool you have made of 
yourself.” 

“ Alas ! I do. That’s where the sting comes. I 
always knew ‘ honesty was the best policy.’ ” 

“ Then this damned villain Carew, how do you 
know he will not abandon you ? He can’t get any 
more fun out of this business. If he asks his poor lit- 
tle wife to forgive him she’ll take him back fast 
enough. ‘ Look here,’ he’ll say, ‘ that woman tempted 
me, and I fell.’ And she’ll say, ‘ Oh, my poor Paul ! 
Of course it wasn’t your fault ? ’ Then it will all blow 
over again, and in six years’ time from the present 
there is no reason why Carew shouldn’t be posing as a 
moral statesman in Greville’s Ministrv ! Where will 
you be then ? ” 

The picture frightened her. 

“ My future has nothing to do with you, and I re- 
fuse to discuss it.” 

She winced under the brutal frankness of his 
speech. 

“ When he was quite a boy he weighed you in his 
balance against what he thought his self-interest. You 
know which he made the heaviest. He sacrificed you 
then, and he will sacrifice you again.” 

The possibility of complete wreckage had never 
occurred to her. Vanity had never permitted her to 
contemplate humiliation so vast. She determined to 
see in it only the voice of jealousy. 

“ There is,” she said defiantly, “ honour among 
thieves.” 


CORRUPTION. 


253 


“ Not when they are such thieves as Carew ! ” 

“ You will tempt me to say things,” she said. 
“ This is the last time we shall meet. I should 
like to leave a good impression of my manners. I 
never saw you at so great a disadvantage before. 
However, it is the fate of the woman taken in — you 
know what — to be stoned, especially by the ill-used 
husband.” 

She preferred fighting to apologising. 

“ There is only one thing for which I’m thankful. 
You have no children to disgrace.” 

Here a page boy bearing a telegram opened the 
door and shouted, “ Mrs. Mannering ! ” 

Mannering was tempted to seize it, but restrained 
himself. 

She opened it, and, with a deep sense of relief, 
which sent the colour to her face, saw it was from 
Carew. It said, “ I am coming.” 

Then she looked at him and said : “ This meeting 
has been painful to both of us. I admit my guilt ; I 
shall make no defence. I ask you only to deal as 
gently with me as you can. Leave out the worst evi- 
dence. The law will give you the relief and vengeance 
you seek. Your life is all before you still. You have 
had a rather heavy fall, but you have not exhausted 
your chances yet. It was your misfortune to marry the 
wrong sort of woman. Good-bye. Thank you for 
your kindness, and forget all about me as soon as you 
can.” 

He rose to his feet, looked at her a space, felt her 


254 : 


CORRUPTION. 


beauty sting liim with a sense of irreparable loss, and 
then walked quickly from the room. 

“ Poor Gerald ! ” she said when he was gone. “ Poor 
Gerald ! ” 

She had maintained her courage throughout the 
interview unfalteringly, but now the ghosts of a thou- 
• sand gentle words and kindly acts leapt from her 
memory. But she had strength to keep back the tears, 
because her pity for herself was far stronger than her 
regret for him. 

“ It is awful,” she thought, “ to begin life all over 
again at my age, and with such a bad start.” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

The steamer moved out of Folkestone harbour, 
churning the green-grey waves into foam; the gulls 
cut aerial figures above the crowded jetty, whilst the 
crowd watched the boat paddling out into the straits 
where the fresh autumn breeze was scattering cheerful 
white caps over the waves. On the deck stood Beatrice 
and Carew beholding the English coast recede. He 
looked harassed and older, but the wind had brought 
the colour into her face ; the sense of escape, flight, and 
reckless defiance of the world and its law, gave fresh 
animation to her eyes. Sea and sky and the winds of 
travel stimulated her sanguine nature. “ Paul and I,” 
she thought, “ are quite the cleverest people I know. 


CORRUPTION. 


255 


We shall pull through somehow. There can be no 
failure and no defeat for us.” 

But the thought, which she kept to herself, sepa- 
rated them more widely than the narrow streak of 
jubilant waters disunited the land she was leaving in 
disgrace from the Continent she was seeking as a 
refuge. Carew felt like a ruler ’whose city has been 
burnt and sacked by the enemy, whose last stronghold 
has been blown up by dynamite. He was not even sure 
that his devastating passion for this woman would bear 
the strain of the tragedy. 

“We have burnt our boats at last, Paul,” she said, 
as the vague line of the French coast became clearer. 

“We haven’t saved much from the wreck, though,” 
he answered. 

“ Look forward, not back. See ! the Dover cliffs are 
only a white line of shadow ; Grisnez there is rushing 
right out into the channel to welcome us. We are wan- 
derers, refugees, adventurers, Paul. Isn’t there some- 
thing exhilarating in the feeling? Let society scream 
as it will ; let hypocrisy preach sermons on us ; pray at 
us; weep crocodile tears for us, what do we care? 
You who knew better than any man the value of 
public praise can afford to mock its censure. How 
salt and fresh the wind is ! how green the sea ! Look 
up ! how the sun lords it over the haj^py flocks of white 
cloud ! 

Be a god and hold me 
With a charm ! 

Be a man and fold me 
With thine arm.’ ” 


17 


256 


CORRUPTION. 


But Carew looked to the English shore where the 
ruins of his hopes and his abandoned wife and child 
were left, and counted his dead. 

“ You are not a very cheerful fellow-criminal, Paul,” 
she said, following his sombre gaze. 

“ It will half kill that unlucky little woman,” he 
said. 

“ Don’t exaggerate. It will only make her exces- 
sively uncomfortable. She will cry, and cry, and cry ! 
Then she will solace herself with the baby. Great are 
the comforting powers of a baby ! In two years’ time 
or so she will be able to get — it is an ugly word, so I 
will only say — what she wants, when the time is ripe. 
We can all begin a general scheme of matrimonial re- 
construction. After all, it need only mean temporary 
political eclipse for you. Other men have quite recov- 
ered after worse accidents — that is quite a nice word for 
it — than ours. Try to think that we are going for a 
holiday together. For a week or two we need not worry 
about anything. We can leave everything to the law- 
yers. We will go where all the exiles of the heart in 
this century have fled, to Italy. Is there not a sense of 
relief in doing exactly as one likes ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said, “ I suppose there is, even in the 
kingdom of vagabondage. But when a man sees all 
his schemes in ruins about him, he can’t begin to 
rebuild his life with any certainty of a renewal of luck. 
The world has given me one chance, it won’t give me 
another.” 

“ There is nc such thing as chance. You succeeded 


CORRUPTION. 


257 


because you were able and strong. Nothing is changed 
in you, only you must fight the battle on fresh ground. 
And now you have me to help you.” 

He looked at her as she watched the long watery 
furrow of foam, amber and green, that the rushing 
steamer left behind. The sea-wind shook the loose 
locks about her small ears ; her eves shone under 
her veil in the shadowless lights of the sea and sky. 
She was daring, audacious, unscrupulous, full of life, 
of courage, yet an unaggressive and beautiful woman. 
Her power of witchery had kept his despair at bay 
ever since, obeying her telegram, he had left Scotland 
to meet her. 

“ But do you feel no pity for the innocent souls we 
have wrecked ? ” he asked. 

“There need be no lives wrecked. What is the 
difference between to-day and to-day month? We 
have been found out, that is all. Discovery ought not 
to affect remorse.” 

“ No, but it does,” he said. “ Offenders never real- 
ise their offence until they are found out.” 

“ Yes, because one sets so absurd a value on the 
world’s opinion. You and I will not. If we have the 
courage now to fashion our lives to suit our own pur- 
pose, rehabilitation — I hope that is the correct word, it 
is ugly enough — will come to us in the natural course 
of things. We shall be ostracised for a few months. 
Who cares? I don’t. Gerald will be pacified and 
avenged with his decree nisi. For the size of the 
scandal the fuss need not be excessive. The lawyers 


258 


COERUPTION. 


will be amiable. We shall repent and be forgiven. 
Eegret is a poor compliment to me whose fall is as 
heavy and whose punishment might be far sterner than 
yours. Courage ! ” she cried, pointing towards the 
French coast, now in sight. 

Then they began to collect the threads. 

“ You never told me what Mannering said of me,” 
he said. 

“ It could only annoy you, but I will if you wish it.” 

“ I should like to know. I had no courage to face 
her. When I wrote her that letter I felt as though I 
were shooting her in the dark. Poor little girl ! ” 

Beatrice frowned. 

“ It would be fairer to keep your pity for me, whose 
sacrifices are boundless. I, too, carry my ghosts here — 
she touched her breast — I forbear introducing them to 
you. Je suis trop Men elevee! If we had lived on that 
side of the Channel, he would have shot you. He told 
me so.” 

“ Did he — the sportsman ? What did you say ? ” 

“ I told him that we were not characters in an 
Adelphi melodrama.” 

“If the roles had been reversed I think I should 
have preferred a revolver to a decree 7iisi. How he 
must loathe me 1 ” 

“ I think he does. In his new part as a prophet, he 
said things about you that made me shudder.” 

She perceived Carew must be given a tonic to pre- 
vent his pity for the wounded becoming too acute. 

“ He made me appear an abject cur, I suppose.” 


CORRUPTION. 


259 


“ Can you bear to hear what he said ? ” 

“ Yes — after all it doesn’t matter now.” 

“ Not in the least. He said you would abandon me 
now you ‘ couldn’t get any more fun out of the busi- 
ness.’ These were his exact words. You would go 
back to your wife, he declared, and ask to be forgiven. 
Your plea is to be the ancient one, the woman tempted 
you ! Your wife is to say, ‘ 0 my poor Paul, it wasn’t 
your fault.’ Then, whilst the prodigal calf is to be 
butchered for your benefit, I am to descend to the 
Gehenna that awaits wicked women.” 

To tell a man of the unheroic course of conduct 
jealous critics predict for him may serve as a goad to 
drive him along a less sordid path. 

She had reached a point in the slope of decadence 
when implicit trust in any human creaure, even when 
supported by self-pride and personal vanity, is impos- 
sible. She knew that this man must be bound to her 
by every link that she could forge, or her rnin would 
be as complete as her husband foretold. Carew felt the 
lash of Mannering’s contempt as only the man can who 
has battened on the praises and fiatteries of honester 
but feebler souls. So swift was the change of mood 
that he almost instantaneously ceased to regret the 
wrong he had done him. He had contemplated writing 
a letter to Mannering promising all the atonement now 
possible. Now he thought, “ The dull fool deserves all 
he has got.” 

She saw how he was stung. 

“ Mannering was blind with jealousy when he said 


260 


CORRUPTION. 


that. His views of life always were narrow, but scarce- 
ly base. But one can’t expect a good, honest, British 
sportsman with a dull wit and a thick head to rise with 
dignity to a tragedy.” 

“ He certainly did not rise to any magnanimous 
heights in his estimate of you,” she said flippantly. 

“ I’m sorry,” he said angrily, “ that his abuse of me 
at such a moment amused you.” 

“ Don’t be vexed, Paul,” she said gently. “ If you 
had heard my defence I don’t think you would be dis- 
pleased with me. I told him that I had trusted you all 
my life, that I would trust you to the end. Your only 
offence was loving me better than I deserved, and hav- 
ing sacrificed your own life and career to that. I told 
him his narrow nature could not understand yours; 
that you were prepared to make all possible atonement 
to your wife, to him, and to the woman who had be- 
guiled you. ‘ Then it is you,’ he said, ‘ who ought to 
be shot.’ ‘ Yes,’ I said, ‘ if vou want the French variant 
of a British melodrama.’ ” 

Carew believed her. Long ago he had convinced 
himself that her passion for him was of the elementary 
kind that gives dignity to sin. 

The shadow of his earlier love crept into his face 
and voice. 

“ The world shall rave as it likes, Beatrice,” he said. 
“The hypocritical gang are going to have their turn 
now, but mine will come again. Whatever happens, 
you shall be my refuge and my peace.” 

The generosity he exhibited in adopting the only 


CORRUPTION. 


261 


attitude not utterly despicable appealed to her sense of 
humour, but this was not the moment to make it visible 
to his grosser vision. 

“ I discovered you before the world, Paul,” she said ; 
“ outwardly I seem a lover of luxury, a ghoul of fashion 
to ruin men’s lives and poison other women’s joys, but 
within under the enamel in which all the children of 
the century case themselves, I am the woman who 
loved you. But here we are entering the harbour and a 
new life. Look back ! England has become a shadow 
on the horizon. We must hear her voice, no doubt, but 
our two lives for the first time are now running to- 
gether. Of all human emotions, love is the one en- 
during thing. We are out of the fogs and mists of 
concealment ; we can live our lives as we like, and need 
no longer tremble every time Mrs. Grundy frowns. All 
I ask of you, Paul, is to be good to me, kind to me, 
tender to me. My fate is in your hands, you are all I 
have left. All the love I had, I gave you years ago; 
now I must pay the price of it. We are down now, and 
the pharisees can pass by wagging virtuous heads. I 
am the only woman in the world who has ever realised 
what you are. Over there in England the hungry 
masses are creeping steadily forward. You are a born 
leader of men. This scandal will not kill us, we will 
slay the scandal. There, on the hill, stands the monu- 
ment raised to commemorate an invasion that never 
came. The next time we cross these straits we will go 
to conquer the kingdom we have lost.” 

And thus her joy in living, her strange powers of 


262 


CORRUPTION. 


witchery over him, her rich beauty, her knowledge of 
life, gradually began to half atone for the sacrifice he 
had made. If she could be so brave, so full of hope, of 
confidence in his unalterable future, of conviction that 
his overthrow was but a slight reverse, why should he 
despair in the pride of his manhood and in the fulness 
of his contempt for the men who sat in the high places 
where the popular votes had placed them ? 

“ The people yonder,” he said, gazing back as the 
boat stopped at the quay, “ keep their trust where they 
have once given it. You are right, I shall be in Grev- 
ille’s Cabinet yet, or in one of my own.” 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

When the world realised that Mannering was the 
petitioner in a divorce suit against his wife, with Mr. 
Paul Carew as co-respondent, it was “shocked,” in its 
usual manner, and prepared to enjoy the scandal. 

“ I knew the intrigue was on years ago,” said the 
knowing man in the smoking-room at Carew’s club, 
“ but, of course, the husband is always the last to find 
his wife out. Carew’s done the only thing he can. 
lie has cut with the woman to the Continent.” 

“But it’s deuced hard on poor little Mrs. Carev/. 
She’s the only one I pity,” said another member. 

“ Mannering will get his decree, and the court will 
lift Mrs. Carew out of the hobble. There is to be no 
defence,” observed another commentator. 


CORRUPTION. 


2C3 


“ Carew has done for himself effectually,” said the 
knowing member, who had been told by a common 
friend that Carew thought him an ass. “ Serve him 
right, he has behaved atrociously.” 

“ I’m not quite so sure,” said the other. “ He means 
to fight. He’s a good-plucked ’un, and as clever as 
thev’re made.” 

“ A lot he can do against the Nonconformist 
conscience,” said the knowing man contemptu- 
ously. 

“ He needn’t sit down and let it jump .on him. 
Carew’s resigned the leadership of his party, and, of 
course, it will go to bits, but I see in to-daj’s paper that 
his constituents are talking about a vote of confidence. 
They don’t seem to know exactly what he has done yet, 
and the divorce proceedings may frighten them off, but 
I shouldn’t be a bit surprised myself if they stuck to 
him through thick and thin. He has represented the 
division ever since he has been in Parliament.” 

“ Muir looks ten years older since his son-in-law’s 
little escapade,” said another smoker. “ He backed 
Carew heavily. He and Mannering provided the 
money for the Carewites. The situation is a bit farci- 
cal.” 

Then the dean who had married Carew came into 
the club for afternoon “ tea and toast.” 

“ Farcical ! ” he exclaimed, picking up the last 
speaker, “ it’s deplorable ! Mrs. Mannering was a dear 
friend of mine, and a most charming woman. I am at 
a loss to understand what horrible fascination this bad 


264 


CORRUPTION. 


man can have exercised over her. All her instincts 
were good.” 

“ They do say,” said the knowing member, “ that it 
was all her fault. Last season there was a good deal of 
talk about her and Prince Ferdinand, but she only used 
him as a stalking-horse, don’t you know.” 

“ She had a lovely voice,” said the dean reprovingly, 
helping himself with dignity to the hot buttered toast, 
“ and sang sacred music to perfection. It’s terrible to 
think that so beautiful and accomplished a woman 
should be ruined irreparably.” 

With the scandalous gossip buzzing in his ears, the 
dean reflected that this “ smart ” sinner was an excel- 
lent type of the brilliant, but erring, soul. He preached 
fashionable sermons to a congregation not entirely out 
of sympathy with human frailty. If he could pin the 
lady to a felicitous and identifying text, the sermon 
would be talked about, and very probably reported. He 
could not forget that she had spoken to him of “ love 
unblessed by the church.” “ There is something more 
than a mere coincidence in that,” he thought. 

When the courts opened after the long vacation, 
Mannering’s case was among the first on the list. The 
excitement it had caused was enormous. All manner 
of “ revelations ” were anticipated, but as a “ first-class 
scandal ” it fell exceedingly flat. 

The petitioner desired to spare his wife as much as 
possible. His counsel carried out his instructions with 
discretion and tact. The prurient, who had looked for- 
ward to columns of succulent details, were disappointed. 


CORRUPTION. 


265 


The whole case was over in half an hour. There was 
no defence. The lawyers made the blow as light as 
possible. The two sinners stood figuratively in peni- 
tential white sheets before the judge, who “ let them 
down ” quite gently in his summing-up. “ It was a 
matter of common knowledge that the respondent and 
co-respondent were living together on the Continent. 
The question to decide w^as a simple one. There could 
be only one answer to it. The case was an exceedingly 
painful one, but the petitioner had certainly appeared 
to have every right to the relief he sought.” When 
Mannering left the Court the “ Fourth Editions ” were 
having a big sale in the Strand, and his name, or that 
of Carew, was on every fiaming “bill of contents.” 
“ The Carew Case ” was over almost as soon as it had 
commenced. On the next day, “ the ruin of a great 
career ” gave the newspapers an excellent opportunity 
for moralising. “ There are three sorts of morality,” 
Carew said, when he read them, “ man-of-the-world 
morality, newspaper morality, and human morality. It 
is only the last which is sincere.” On the following 
Sunday, at St. Margaret’s, AVestminster, the dean 
preached an eloquent sermon on “ smart ” society, and 
the follies and vices of an agnostic age, which had no 
faith and no God, “ save its own lusts.” The weekly 
papers and the magazines, as usual, took up the theme 
when it was threadbare, partly from friction with the 
daily press, but chiefiy on account of tlie shortcomings 
of Carew’s predecessors. On “ the relation of morals to 
politics ” there was nothing new to say. Moreover, the 


2G6 


CORRUPTION. 


local paper, the only one which the voters of the Beau- 
vis Division of Westshire read, generously omitted to 
reprint the condemnatory comments of more exalted 
journals. They simply knew that their member 
“ meant to make an honest woman of the lady as soon 
as the lawyers would let him.” As critics, they did not 
plunge too deeply into the intricacies of human passions, 
and there were no little Betiiels in tlie district to urge 
them on. “ I suppose we ought to call on him to re- 
sign,” said some. “ I don’t see why we should,” said 
the others ; “ we shan’t get such a good un’ again.” 

In their doubt, Carew, from Florence, issued an ad- 
dress. He had, he said, served his constituents for many 
years, and to the best of his ability, ever since he had 
been in Parliament. “ After what had transpired,” he 
must leave himself in their hands, but he could scarcely 
believe they would be the first to stone him. That 
should be left to his enemies. If they wished him 
to resign, he would willingly vacate the seat, but he 
must refuse to admit that anything had occurred in his 
private life which ought to preclude him from continu- 
ing to serve them in Parliament. 

The address, which vexed the “ Nonconformist con- 
science ” and amused the clubs, was followed by a vote 
of confidence on the part of his constituents, who took 
a perfectly businesslike view of the matter. The dis- 
trict was a purely agricultural one. Carew had laboured 
strenuously in the interest of the tenant farmer. “ He 
knows more about the land than any man in England,” 
said the farmer who rented one of Carew’s farms, at the 


COHRUPTION. 


267 


meeting ; “ and we won’t turn him out to please a lot of 
Cockney busybodies who don’t know the difference be- 
tween an orchard and a turnip field. Just look at the 
Parish Church. It’s chock-full cf Carews ! He comes 
from the soil from which we try to scrape a living. He ' 
has stuck to us, and I vote we stick to him. He isn’t 
the only man who has made a little slip, and it isn’t 
for us to jump on him.” 

So the dissentients v/ere howled down, the vote of 
thanks was passed, and a telegram announcing the fact 
sent off to Florence. 

“You have won your first victory!” said Beatrice 
triumphantly. 


CHAPTER XXXIY. 

Carev/’s plunge into the gulf left the Muirs gasp- 
ing in bewilderment and horror. They had that purely 
middle-class terror of scandal that gives to humiliation 
its sharpest sting. Perhaps the greatest affliction that 
can befall the millionaire is to find himself the victim 
of the one accident against which his gold cannot pro- 
tect him. Within the inner circle of collapse and confu- 
sion the defeated father whose bubbles all had burst, the 
afflicted mother, and the heart-broken daughter drifted 
side by side in helpless disappointment. The Muirs had 
always been eminently respectable and commonplace. 
Their environment was too narrow, its atmosphere too 
thin, to expand to a tragedy. The business instincts of 


268 


CORRUPTION. 


three successful and opulent generations impelled Muir 
to regard every incident in life from the practical stand- 
point of profit and loss. Honour with him was a syno- 
nym for respectability ; a scandal which money could 
not “ hush up ” was a tragedy, for which he was totally 
unprepared. The bullet that brought all his pride low 
had been shot from his own household. The honoured 
son-in-law, the political oracle, the rising statesman, had 
pulled the trigger without compunction. 

“ If he had only consulted me ! ” groaned the unhap- 
py man to his wife, as he lay awake at nights, revolving 
the matter in his narrow mind. “If he hadn’t run off 
with her, the lawyers might have patched up something. 
I shouldn’t have minded what I paid.” 

“ It’s poor Connie whom I consider, not the scan- 
dal,” said his wife. 

Outside, the autumn wind sweeping across the 
moors, wailed dismally round the turrets of the old 
manor house, which Muir called “ his shooting-box.” 

“She needn’t have known anything about it. It 
seems the disgraceful business began before this woman 
married Mannering.” 

“ She’s bad, bad to the core,” said his wife in help- 
less anger. “ I hope she may pay bitterly for it.” 

“ She’ll go to the deuce — they all do — and take him 
with her,” said Muir. “We shall be left looking like 
fools. A newspaper writer the other day suggested that 
I had bought Carew to fight Greville’s Prohibition Bill. 
To-morrow they will be asking me whether I like my 
bargain. As a member of Parliament I shall never lift 


CORRUPTION. 


269 


my head up agaiu. All I can do is to resign my seat. 
Damn it! We look ridiculous. Such a chance as he 
had too 1 ” 

“ Poor Steve ! poor Steve ! ” said his wife plaintively, 
feeling in the dark for her husband’s hand ; “ but how 
shall we comfort our poor little girl ? ” 

“ She must have a judicial separation, I suppose. 
In two years the law will give her a divorce. I haven’t 
asked the lawyers, but I think she’s entitled to that.” 

Still, there was small comfort in the business view 
this time. 

“ A separation won’t comfort the poor child when 
her heart’s broken, John. It is dreadful to see her. I 
always thought he w^as fond of her.” 

“ He was, too, in his way. But that doesn’t make 
it better.” 

“ He is the victim of a wicked and designing 
woman — that’s what I believe,” said Mrs. Muir, 
clutching at a humiliating excuse for her daughter’s 
husband. 

“ I don’t believe in victims. One’s as bad as the 
other.” 

But the clock struck three, and the aggrieved 
couple made an effort to sleep. 

All the guests had left before the wind of the 
scandal, and now there were none left to harass the 
grouse on their host’s moors. The post had brought 
the letter to the young wife on the morning of her 
husband’s retreat. 

“ To leave you free,” Carew wrote, “ is all that now 


270 


CORRUPTION. 


remains to me. I have left England with Beatrice 
Mannering, because I am the one man in the world 
to whose protection she has any human right. I dare 
not ask you to forgive me ; to hope that you will un- 
derstand me is to expect too much from a nature so 
simple, so pure, and so good as yours. You could 
hardly wish my ruin greater if all the love you once 
bore me were turned to the bitterest hate. It is com- 
plete. My career has ended in disgrace, my future has 
gone. To the end of my life I shall hold you in 
affectionate memory, for, although I have deceived 
you, I cannot separate the feeling of eternal gratitude 
to you from one which I have no longer the right to 
name. The law will give you the liberty to which you 
have every right. Good-bye, Constance, and God bless 
you and the boy. — P. C.” 

The stricken woman took the letter to her room 
and locked the door, tearless and stunned. She only 
realised that her husband had deserted her and their 
child for her rival, and that her happiness was shat- 
tered. She saw the arm-chair on which he had sat a 
few hours before in his shooting clothes, before he 
dressed for dinner after a long day on the moors. 
On the mantelpiece lay a forgotten cigarette-case 
which she had given him, marked with his mono- 
gram. In a dressing-room adjoining were scattered 
other trifling but touching objects associated with their 
existence in common. She sat down on a couch, shut 
her eyes, and tried to face her position. At last she 
knew that her flrst jealous instincts were right. The 


CORRUPTION. 


271 


little chain of suspicions that had worried her now 
told its manifest tale. This wicked woman, this false 
friend, had beguiled her husband from her. She was 
the great criminal. Paul made this supreme sacrifice 
for her, because — here a tiresome phrase occurred to 
her — “ his honour, rooted in dishonour, stood.” She 
thought the line silly and pedantic, but it had become 
a definition, and haunted her. She knew she ought 
to hate him, but her rival absorbed the whole sum of 
that, leaving none for her husband. “ I would rather 
I were dead, he were dead, and baby were dead, all 
together, than that this had happened.” 

She buried her head in the cushions and shut out 
the world. Through the open window she could hear 
the wind in the needles of the tall firs, the distant 
flock bleating on the brown hills, and the sharp bark- 
ing of the shepherd’s collie. “ I have no longer a 
husband ; baby has no longer a father ; if it wasn’t for 
the boy, all would have been as though he never had 
married me.” 

Soon she heard the sound of voices. Some of the 
shooting party had returned. The world outside was 
going on around her as though nothing unusual had 
happened ; her world had come to an end. The 
luncheon gong sounded, but she lay dazed, with her 
face in the cushions. The sunshine, the breezy heath- 
clad uplands in which she had delighted, the glen 
where the trout stream babbled, the trees with the 
early autumn tints, had all grown hateful. “ If I 

could only sleep and never wake again ! ” she thought. 

18 


272 


CORRUPTION. 


“ How shall I tell them ? ” Despair remorselessly tore 
her meek innocence to pieces. “ Perhaps all the world 
was wicked like that. Men loved how they liked and 
where they liked. Faith, honour, and virtue were only 
shams. Perhaps these two were no worse than the 
rest, only they had been found out. Everything 
seemed a big lie. Some day baby would grow up to be 
a wicked man* too. Everybody must be wicked if 
Paul — who had always been so good to her — was.” 
Then she remembered how her brother once had told 
her that she was “ like Amelia in Vanity Fair^'' and 
that she had been vexed because he had thought her 
a “ simpleton.” How the world seemed divided into 
two ranks — the wicked and the simple, and the first 
preyed upon the last. A thousand haunting and taunt- 
ing memories rushed out of the past to mock her use- 
less grief. At last she heard her mother at the door. 
“ Open the door, dear ! Aren’t you well ? ” said the 
kind, familiar voice. 

Then she let her mother in, and the patch of sun- 
shine on the carpet which she passed made her heart 
sick. 

“ Why, Connie ! what is the matter? ” 

She handed her the letter, and saw her mother’s 
handsome and comfortable face grow as white as her 


own. 


CORHUPTION. 


273 


CnAPTEK XXXV. 

Carew and Beatrice Mannering moved from place 
to place, avoiding their countrymen, and more espe- 
cially their countrywomen, as much as possible. 

“We can’t meet them on equal terms just yet, 
Paul,” she said anxiously. 

In the hall of an hotel in Venice she had met Lady 
Dolly Delafosse and her daughter. The adventurous 
matron, formerly her friend and ally, had not herself 
escaped the tongue of calumny, hut she froze with 
horror when she saw Beatrice, and, with her daughter 
close to her virtuous skirts, retired to the privacy of her 
apartment, whence she watched the Carews in their 
gondola with the most mischievous amusement. 

“ The dreadful woman is prettier than ever,” she 
said to her daughter, alert and curious behind the other 
curtain. 

“ That detestable Lady Delafosse cut me just now in 
the hall. They have just arrived at the hotel.” 

“ Confoundedly unpleasant,” said Carew. 

Every day of their lives now taught them what they 
had lost. When the flight of lovers must be conducted 
on economical principles, an uncongenial element is 
added to the romance. They were now thrown on 
their own resources. Beatrice had brought an impos- 
ing collection of trunks fllled with some charming 
costumes, but other property had she none. Before 
departing for Konigsfontcin in August she had pro- 


274 


CORRUPTION. 


cured a new trousseau. “ Some beneficent spirit must 
have tempted me to order all those dresses,” she said to 
Paul when they stood before the formidable pile of 
their joint luggage. 

“Undoubtedly,” he said, laughing unmirthf ully ; 
“we can’t move without paying £5 for ‘excess.’ We 
look rather like a provincial company on tour.” 

They tried tacitly to regard their feverish wander- 
ing in the light of a marriage tour, but with small 
success. Beatrice had taken it for granted that Mrs. 
Carew would “follow the usual course of abandoned 
wives,” but so far she had made no application to the 
courts. “ But her people will make her in the end,” 
thought Beatrice, with a qualm of misgiving. “ The 
matrimonial readjustment” was beset with difficulties 
greater than she had foreseen. 

“ Fancy having lived to be cut by Lady Delafosse, 
Paul,” she said ; “ it is like a conquest over time.” 

“ It is what we must expect,” he said resignedly. 

“ What I must expect, you mean ; she wouldn’t cut 
you. They never stone the man. They are always 
‘so sorry for him.’ Let us leave Venice. It is getting 
full of English. Most of them know you by sight. 
They never could keep you out of the illustrated 
papers.” 

“ Where shall we go ?” 

“ I don’t know. It is a pity we are so poor.” 

“ Yes. We have lost the habit of ‘ economy.’ ” 

She knew he had only a few poor hundreds a year 
of his own, and something less than £3000 at his 


CORRUPTION. 


275 


banker’s, kept, as he had told her, “ as a war 
fund.” 

“ I think the best thing we can do is to take a small 
villa somewhere out of the way, and wait there till the 
Muirs have shown their hand,” she said. 

This was the first time she had referred to his wife’s 
family since they were on the Boulogne boat. The sub- 
ject pained him, and it was her object to keep him in 
good spirits and temper. 

“ They won’t do anything,” he said. “ Constance, 
poor child, won’t let them.” 

“ But why ? ” 

“ You can guess.” 

“ You mean that she will never take a step to help 
you to marry me?” 

The soft green waters of the lagoon under the 
silver grey mists suddenly ceased to soothe her, the gon- 
dola to rock her, the full rich pulse of her buoyant life 
to cheer her. She remembered her husband’s words, 
and her face grew pale. 

“ Would you help me to marry another woman, Bea- 
trice,” he said, watching her troubled face, “if I had 
treated you as I have treated her ? ” 

“ I am utterly unable to realise myself in such a 
position,” she said ; “ but if she doesn’t, we must make 
her. She could not be so cruel.” 

“ If the worst comes, there is America,” said Carew. 
“ We can begin again there.” 

“ Let us escape from Venice ; I am beginning to see 
ghosts.” 


27G 


CORRUPTION. 


said Carew in his English Italian. 

Her pride and her hope both felt the shock. 
Carew, who had suspected the permanent existence of 
the obstacle she had deemed temporary, could acqui- 
esce in it without acute distress. His dominion over 
his wife’s heart might be, she thought, a secret solace 
to him. How could she be sure that even now a 
secret understanding might not exist between them? 
A dozen humiliating hypotheses harassed her mind. 
Venice, which had just now appealed to her by a hun- 
dred charms of romance and contact, lost its friendly 
face. They passed gondolas full of British tourists in 
check suits and caps with two peaks. Venice was ceas- 
ing to be the Venice of the Doges, of the dreadful Ten, 
of Byron, of Shelle}^ of Emilia Viviani, and becoming 
the point where, in her moral orientation, she had 
found herself, and first suspected her influence over her 
fellow-sinner might be on the wane. Their passion had 
never been put to a severe test before. Did not all 
strong emotions consume themselves in time, and leave 
behind in their ashes leaden obligations that became in- 
tolerable in their fulfilment? 

“ What ghosts were 3 ^ou thinking of just now ? ” 
Carew asked her as their boatman pro]3elled them into 
the Grand Canal. 

“Misgivings, Paul ; a glimpse of a friendless and a 
loveless life.” 

“ You don’t trust me,” he answered. “ I will keep 
my promise.” 

“ Even if it became irksome? ” 


CORRUPTIOX. 


277 


“ You v/ould never let it be tliat. But, after all, 
marriage is only a convention. We can live our own 
lives with some comfort without legal sanction. Others 
have done it.” 

“ The arrangement has its conveniences, especially 
for the man,” she replied significantly. 

At last, weary of wandering, the refugees pitched 
their camp in a small villa on the Riviera, between 
Beaulieu and Nice, which they rented furnished of a 
negociant of Marseilles. The unassuming, red-tiled, 
white-washed Bastide hung like an eagle’s nest on the 
side of the great hills through which the Corniche 
Road ran. To the north lay the snow-capped Mari- 
time Alps ; to the south, the steep valley and the blue 
Mediterranean. The small orchard was full of fruit 
trees ; roses overran the garden, and the larks sung all 
day long above the wild lavender that withered into 
fragrant death as the nights grew chillier. Here, wuth 
two country maids to wait on them, they settled down 
for a month in comparative happiness, waiting, it 
seemed to Beatrice, for something which never hap- 
pened. They had books to beguile the time, the 
'weather was perfect, the stream of English visitors 
had not set in. They spent long sunny hours seated 
side by side in the garden looking across the sea. In 
some moods they were as frank as the happiest and 
most innocent lovers ; at others, when her doubts and 
his gloom, and the lethargy of the Muirs’ lawyers, 
interrupted their communion, they were conscious that 
an intangible misgiving stood between. This the blue 


278 


CORRUPTION. 


sky, tlie fragrant mountain slopes of their lovely soli- 
tude, could not dispel. 

“ She cannot trust me after all,” he thought, know- 
ing that her instinct was not unjust, and secretly 
ashamed that it should be so. 

When between two lovers there lies a dark chamber 
of the soul which they dare not enter together because 
faith is lacking, love weakening, and sacrifices are 
registered according to their weight, a point is finally 
reached where the delights of their daily intercourse 
must be counterbalanced by regret for the pitiless 
process invisibly disuniting them, and by contemj^t 
for the egoism that set it in motion. Beatrice could 
no longer refer to their possible marriage. If he 
wished it, she thought, he might have helped to 
smooth the way for it. 

“ After all,” she thought, in her worst days, “ I .may 
be no luckier than the rest. My God may only prove 
an agile-minded satyr.” 

So she grew more critical. She studied the nature 
of the man, and penetrated the recesses of his character 
with an intuition which, wdiilst it made him marvel at 
the keenness of her sagacity, wounded his pride. For 
the knowledge that lays bare our defects is not the 
form of wisdom we are prepared to admire. 

The Autumn Session that year commenced in 
November, and it had become necessary for Carew 
to act. 

“Something is due to my constituents, Beatrice,” 
he said. “ Shall we go home together and face it ? ” 


CORRUPTION. 


279 


But she knew that he desired to go alone. His po- 
litical friends might even now rally round him, and 
beg him to make sacrifices on the altar of conyentional 
morality. Similar indiscretions in other leading poli- 
ticians had been forgotten and forgiven. The Muirs, 
she thought, would take a practical view of the situa- 
tion. Mannering had resigned his seat and gone to his 
old sporting pursuits in the Rocky Mountains. The 
“ Carewites,” without Carew, were but a feeble parlia- 
mentary group destined to extinction. Ambition was 
the ruling force in his character; his regret for the 
grief he had caused his wife she knew was sincere. She 
had caught him more than once, wdien he thought she 
was not looking, gazing wistfully at the photograph of 
the mother and child. She threw numberless experi- 
mental straws, invisible to his eyes, into the current of 
his hopes to ascertain whither they were drifting. 
She knew her influence was dominant when he was 
under the power of her beauty, but she was very far 
from being sure that she was still an absolute necessity 
in his existence. 

“You must go to Beau vis, and sit in the House,” 
she said, “ otherwise the world will say you have ‘ gone 
under.’ But ought I to come with you?” 

“It is for you to decide,” he said. “You know 
your wishes are my law.” 

The afternoon was delightful. He had placed her 
long chair on the gravel path. The warm autumn 
sunshine of the south bathed the steep hillside. The 
ragged, luxuriant garden was bright with flowers, large 


280 


COKEUPTION. 


Red Admiral butterflies flitted througli the grey-green 
leaves of the olive orchard and over the evergreens, 
the soft wind shook the slender eucalypta caressingly, 
and rustled the dry foliage of the deciduous trees in 
the grove below; beyond that stretched the deep blue 
sea, heaving itself into flashes of whitest foam on the 
edge of the steep rocks. 

She looked at the glorious prospect, and sighed. Its 
beauty reached her heart, keenly susceptible to im- 
pressions from without. 

“ Are my wishes your law, Paul ? ” she asked slowly. 

“ Yes.” 

“ This place is very beautiful. The few weeks we 
have dreamt away here have been very pleasant and 
peaceful. Suppose I were to say ‘ stay ’ — would you ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Reluctantly ? ” 

“Reluctantly? — yes in one way. It would mean 
surrender. All along you have cried ‘ No surrender.’ ” 

“ Don’t be afraid. I will not ask you to run away. 
But now this question of my coming. Let us defy the 
world with discretion. It isn’t wise to wave me at 
society like a red flag.” 

“ Of course it isn’t,” he said more cheerf ullv, “ and a 
terrible ordeal for you. You might stay here. I will 
come over to you in a few weeks. My appearance in 
my place in the House would remove public misappre- 
hension. My name has scarcely appeared in the 
papers since my constituents passed their vote of 
confidence.” 


CORRUPTION. 


281 


“ You are like the warhorse of scripture, sniffing the 
battle from afar.” 

“ I do not like leaving you ; hut what can be done ? 
You must trust me.” 

“ Yes, I must. I wish to heaven I had done what 
you asked me that autumn day at Portradock. We 
should have been safe now. I must stay here in this 
Eden till Adam comes back. There is no help for it.” 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Whej^ the morning came for Carew to leave the 
Bastide, Beatrice’s courage failed her. She had never 
been alone in her life. Even with Paul constantly at 
her side, the solitude had begun to tell on her nerves. 
In fine weather, and in the daytime, it was tolerable, 
but in the long evenings, when the curtains of the 
small, bare rooms were drawn, and the lamps lit, the 
feeling of remoteness from the centre of life in which, a 
few months ago, she had filled so brilliant a part, lay on 
her senses like lead. Sometimes they sat on either side 
of the lamp reading or pretending to read, but often a 
prey to thoughts they dared not exchange. The world 
outside was swallowed up in the vastness of the night. 
On the quiet sea, silence and shadow; on the steep, 
black hills, vague rustlings of olive trees and cypresses 
that grew portentous as she listened. To the east and 
west, projecting shoulders of the hills cut them ofi 


282 


CORRUPTION. 


from Monaco and the stream of brightness which 
fringed the shore at Nice. 

“ There is no help for it, Paul, then ? ” 

“ None,” he said, “ since you do not think it wise to 
come.” 

“ You will be back here in six weeks? ” 

“Yes — almost certainly.” 

“ And you will write every other day ? ” 

“ Yes. Don’t look so sad. I am going back quite 
as much for your sake as mine. A few weeks more 
here will be very tolerable. Fancy what London is 
like. Here we sit in the sun and hear the larks sing. 
There the winter has begun, and the November fog 
hangs over Westminster like a dirty blanket. I fancy I 
can see it.” 

“ I wish I could. I don’t believe I shall ever see 
again. I am an exile. Everybody will forget me.” 

“ Beatrice, Beatrice, I shall never forget you ! ” 

She was clinging to him very fondly at that mo- 
ment. Outside, a rickety vehicle was waiting to take 
him to the station. His luggage was already piled up 
on it, his light greatcoat lay across the back of the 
chair ready to his hand. There was something quite 
bourgeois about this departure, she had thought, as she 
had watched its preparations. 

There was an exasperating element of defeat in the 
situation she never forgot. She was entirely in the 
power of a man whose passion for her had reached its 
highest point, and who was drawn by a thousand 
interests in another direction. The regret he felt at 


CORRUPTION. 


283 


leaving her could not conceal the excitement that filled 
him at the prospect of beginning the contest which was 
to win him back the political influence he had so nearly 
lost. 

“ But what on earth am I to do whilst you are away, 
Paul ? ” she asked almost desperately. 

“ I wish you had someone to stay with you,” he said. 

“Shall I advertise for a companion to share ex- 
penses ? ” she asked, trying to smile. 

“ That’s right ; be brave ! ” he said. “ Six weeks is 
nothing. Do you remember when I came from school, 
how short the holidays always seemed ? I will be home 
here for my holidays before Christmas.” 

“ Christmas ! ” she said. “ IIow awful it sounds ! ” 

“ I know you have to face the worst time now,” he 
vrent on, trying hard to comfort her, but feeling hope- 
lessly matter-of-fact; “but, remember, when I return 
we shall probably know something definite. Don’t 
imagine that I am going to England for my own 
pleasure. Every man I pass in the lobby of the House 
will cut me. I am the villain in the play over there.” 

“ You don’t seem nervous at the prospect.” 

“ I’m not, now the Beauvis people have stuck to me. 
I shall have an excellent chance of making it unpleas- 
ant in the House to the men who dare to annoy me. 
But I must go, Beatrice.” He pressed her face close to 
his, and she felt the comfort of the strong clasp she was 
about to lose. “ Be as happy as you can ; I won’t say 
be happy. Avoid Nice and Monaco; don’t let the 
English visitors know you are here. You have every- 


284 


CORRUPTION. 


thing here to cradle the fancy, except society — books, 
music, flowers, the gorgeous Alps, and the bluest sea. 
There are women breaking their hearts in London who 
would think this place a paradise, and your leisure 
Olympian ease. There ! there ! and there ! be brave, 
for you know I love you, and will guard you as care- 
fully as though you were my own life. Kiss me once 
more. Courage, and good-bye ! ” 

Then he left her hurriedly and jumped into the 
dilapidated flacre. There was little dignity in the de- 
parture. Carew might have been an ordinary husband 
returning to his business in the Stock Exchange. The 
driver, with the ridiculous face of an Algerine pirate, 
but with all the buccaneer squeezed out of it, cracked 
his whip, as though he were conducting a bridal party 
to receive the cure's blessing. The day was bright, the 
air balmy. On her face she still felt the pressure of his 
kisses. Suddenly, from the bough of a dwarf oak, to 
which the withered leaves still clung, a robin plaintively 
sang. On its breast, and in its song, were a thousand 
memories of home and England. Her swift mind flew 
back with a shudder to the September morning when 
she had left Elcourt. 

“ Poor Gerald ! Dear Elcourt ! ” 

There was a corner in the garden whence the wind- 
ing road could be watched from the point where it un- 
rolled itself like a white riband from the olive orchards. 
Beatrice moved thither, and sat on the stone wall, and 
waited for the appearance of the vehicle. 

She could see a peasant woman, bearing a basket on 


CORRUPTION. 


285 


her head, slowly ascending the road, and hear the rattle 
of the wheels. So long as that sound was in her ears, 
the sense of intense loneliness could not possess her. 
Ah ! there was the cab. Paul had put on his light coat 
and was smoking. He did not forget his comfort! 
She waved a white handkerchief ; he returned the 
greeting. The driver cracked his whip ; the echo 
from the other side of the valley repeated it. But 
there ! All she could cling to had jolted out of sight 
into the dark woods which covered the lower slopes of 
the hill. Now she was quite alone. In the mild air, 
which the violets scented, the insects still flashed in the 
sunshine ; the sea lay like a blue mirror beneath her ; 
a small fleet of quaint-sailed boats making for Nice 
harbour rounded the promontory. All the long day 
through, and through the longer night, she must wait. 
It was tragic to be left like this. She might read ; she 
might wander up the hill and down it ; she might play 
on the cracked piano; she might arrange the flowers. 
Heavens ! what a life ! The blue sky, and the blue sea, 
and the beautiful sweep of the coast must be her chief 
solace. “ I feel like James Lee’s wife,” she said to her- 
self. “My heart shrivels up and my spirit shrinks 
curled.” What was the value of her beauty when there 
was no one to admire it ? Of her wit, when there was 
no one to hear it? Her life was a mistake, and all 
through Carew, who now offered her a protection, 
which she must accept without mutiny, in spite of its 
strong flavour of condescension. Thus she spent the 
morning, her fair head in the gloom. 


286 


CORRUPTION. 


There were no household duties for her at the 
Bastide. The cook, a black-browed N'i9oise, did the 
marketing; the house servant discharged the rest of 
the service required. They had engaged the servants 
from the last locataire^ and the little domestic wheel 
ran in the groove which strangers had arranged. 

No, there was nothing, absolutely nothing to do. 

At twelve o’clock dejeuner was served, consisting of 
some fresh sardines, a cutlet, an omelet, and a dish of 
pears. The place where Paul had sat was filled by a 
ghost. “ He must be nearly at Toulon by this time,” 
she thought. 

Annette, the honne^ looked on at her mistress 
curiously. It was evident that madame missed 
monsieur. When lunch was over, she brought her 
a big envelope, vdiich monsieur had left in the 
drawer. 

It contained the portrait of his wife and child. 

“ Tiens ! ” said Annette to herself inquisitively. 
Beatrice felt relieved that he had forgotten to take 
them, and then ashamed that so trifling an oversight 
could affect her. “I am sinking very low; I am 
clutching at straws. There was never any spirit in 
Connie Carew,” she thought, looking into the young 
mother’s face bending in mild-eyed triumph over the 
babe. “ She means to sit and wait till it pleases her 
lord to return. Some women with babies will forgive 
anything. The Muirs are waiting for Paul to repent — 
as sure as I am an unlucky woman ! I was a fool to let 
him go alone.” 


CORRUPTION. 


287 


“ There is no doubt of it,” Annette told the cook ; 
“ madame commence a s’embeter joliment ! ” 

No day had ever seemed so long. Beatrice would 
have bartered a year of her life for a stirring and inspir- 
ing joy. Life seemed curdled and stagnant. 

The calm day moved on to the chill, calm night. 
Under the clear sky the tem23erature sank. Annette 
lighted a wood fire in the desolate salon^ through 
wdiose ill-closed windows the first breath of frost began 
to creep. The wood fire sputtered, the shadows danced 
on naked w^alls and bare ceiling, and Beatrice, crouch- 
ing over the fire in a fifty-guinea wrap that Mannering 
had given her, staggered under the weight of her own 
ruin. Her dry, haggard eyes reflected the dancing fire- 
light, whilst the solitude seemed thickening around her 
until it became a dungeon with massive walls. 


CHAPTER XXXVIL 

Meanwhile at Beauvis, amongst his constituents, 
Carew adopted an attitude of proud humility. Although 
the leading men had rallied round him, there was still 
a party which clamoured for his resignation. “ The 
Real Purity Society,” whose fervour bad been stirred to 
the lowest depths, sent down a contingent to organise 
virtue; the “Anti-Divorce Society ” joined hands with 
them in the “ cause of public morals ” ; the Plymouth 

Methodists also despatched some of their most “ mov- 
19 


288 


CORRUPTION. 


ing ” speakers to participate in the honours and glories 
of this “ moral war,” whilst Nonconformists generally 
took up arms. Conflicts of this kind have always exer- 
cised a peculiar fascination for the English people. The 
whole county was filled with excitement at the pros- 
pect of a row in which lust and religion were so happily 
fused. 

So one morning Beau vis woke up, and those who 
read the London papers found that their division was 
famous. 

Unluckily for Carew’s opponents, the constituency 
was a widely-scattered one, and “quite undeveloped” in 
questions of morals ; the local rustic mind holding some- 
what primitive views concerning the relations of the 
sexes. If finally the frail lady were made “ an honest 
woman of” by the erring gentleman, all was forgiven at 
Beauvis. Moreover, Beauvis was proud of Carew. The 
other divisions of the county were scarcely ever referred 
to by the London papers, whilst Beauvis was now “never 
out of them.” There, as the representative of a once 
great local family now swamped under agrarian disas- 
ters, Carew was popular and respected. 

“ Mr. Carew,” said Mr. Topham, a leading resident 
and one of Carew’s tenants, “ has, it is true, been un- 
lucky with a lady. There are more than two electors 
on the rates of this parish who have had similar misfor- 
tunes. What I say is, gentlemen, that human nature is 
human nature, and it isn’t for us to throw the first 
stone, and to get rid of one of the ablest men in Eng- 
land, just to please the Plymouth Methodists who’ve 


CORRUPTION. 


289 


only one chapel in the division, and a gang of Pa- 
pists in disguise anxious to give every encouragement 
to unfaithful wives.” 

This was said at a public meeting in the big room of 
the “ White Hart ” summoned to “ support our member 
in this his hour of trial,” and met with a shout of ap- 
plause. For Carew had been requested to resign on the 
grounds that “ as the co-respondent in a notorious di- 
vorce suit he was no longer a fit and suitable person to 
represent a Christian constituency in Parliament.” 

Carew had replied that, inasmuch as his electors had 
passed a vote of confidence in his favour he must decline 
to discuss the matter until that vote should be reversed. 
To achieve this was now the object of the combined 
forces of Purity, and the whole district rang with the 
cries of battle. 

Reporters and interviewers came down from Lon- 
don, and the “ White Hart ” was crowded with eager 
pressmen. 

“ Are you going to renew the vote of confidence or 
not ? ” was the question they put to every leading Beau- 
visian. 

But, in spite of all, Carew’s shadow imposed on the 
constituency which had the sense to recognise that it 
was a small place with a big man to advertise it. 
At the worst he was a fallen but brilliant angel — a type 
many prefer to smug and self-assertive virtue. 

The old rector, after some conscientious misgivings 
and an interview with Carew, finally decided that “ their 
young member’s great career must not be spoilt because 


200 


CORRUPTION. 


he had committed one grievous sin.” lie preached a 
most eloquent sermon in which he even discovered ex- 
cuses for David under somewhat analogous circum- 
stances. David bitterly repented. The inference was 
that Carew would do so likewise. 

Then, strangely enough perhaps, the women were on 
Carew’s side. As a sinner he was eminently picturesque. 
His pale, handsome, harassed face and the charm of his 
voice and manner sent them to Lancelot for a parallel. 
For he visited far and wide amongst his electors, and 
wherever the Purity cavillers made an impression he did 
his best to wipe it out. But as is generally the case, the 
Purity campaign was overdone. Carew’s enemies tried 
to make him too black ; they abused Beauvis for haviug 
tolerated its member for so long, and likened the pleas- 
ant orchard district to Gomorrah and other “ cities of 
the plain.” “ Only,” they cried, “ a very licentious com- 
munity would condone depravity such as this ! ” Then 
stones were throv/n in the market-place, and one or two 
leading “ Real Purity soldiers ” were roughly handled. 
For in Beauvis, where there still lingers a taste for cock- 
fighting, a fondness for “ sport ” in its ruder forms is 
more acute than the feeling for nice points in sexual 
morality. For once, “ Real Purity” found no good soil 
to blossom on. It was matched with a skilful and 
splendidly-equipped adversary, and on his own ground. 
The invaders were wild with exasperated virtue. Since 
Beauvis had been likened to Gomorrah it determined to 
back up its member more strenuously than ever. Rosy 
rustics, apple-cheeked farmers, “ solid Churchmen to a 


CORRUPTION. 


291 


man,” roared themselves hoarse with defiance at every 
“ Real Purity ” meeting. It was a very human place, 
and quite healthily savage. 

A Keltic strain in its blood endov'cd it with a dash 
of humour too, and it resented being treated as an out- 
post of heathendom by the black-hatted, pale-faced 
gentlemen sent down to rescue it from a personal ascend- 
ency of wdiich it was proud. In the end their defeat 
was complete. The vote of thanks w^as never rescinded. 
In retaliation they arranged that a contingent of the 
Salvation Army should be quartered at Beauvis, but the 
country people looked on this rather as an indirect com- 
pliment, regarding the invasion as evidence of their own 
growing importance. They had a natural taste for big 
drums and brass bands at other festivals besides the 
annual Bean Feast. And so the vote of confidence was 
renewed and the victory won, and Carew, at a crowded 
meeting held in the market-place, because there w^as no 
covered hall big enough to contain the applauding elec- 
tors, thanked Beauvis for the splendid example of elec- 
toral independence that it had given to the world. 
“ If,” he said, “ you had flung me to the canting crew 
clamouring for my destruction, I must have retired into 
private life, probably for ever. Hereafter I will do my 
utmost to repay you for your noble confidence to the 
best of my ability, and to do my duty to you and the 
country you still think me worthy to serve.” 

But it was some time before the division could settle 
down, so strongly had local feeling been excited. 

The office of a newspaper, published at a neighbour- 


292 


CORRUPTION. 


ring market-town, was wrecked by the crowd for refer- 
ring to Carew’s victory as “ the triumph of a hoary but 
local iniquity over the noblest sentiments of the country 
at large.” In the following week, after the editor’s 
windows had been mended, and when two policemen 
were on duty on his door-step, the ill-used “ leader of 
public opinion ” retaliated by declaring that “ so hide- 
ous a carnival of savagery was only possible in a district 
where the illegitimate births were as five to three of the 
population ” — a statement which the Beauvis Guardian 
had no difficulty in proving, by published statistics, to 
be utterly without foundation and a gross slander on 
the most independent and virtuous division of the whole 
of Westshire. 

Having played his game amongst his electors with 
singular skill, Carew returned to his parliamentary 
duties. He found the “ Carewites ” a scattered and hu- 
miliated flock. Muir was sulking in Scotland, his seat 
a prey to the Opposition. Mannering had thrown up 
politics ; Dawton was now represented by a supporter of 
Greville. Where Carew had found a flattering recep- 
tion and admiring friends he was now met with averted 
eyes or a distant nod. He had disappointed so many 
hopes. Greville pretended not to see him in the lobby ; 
in the smoking-room there was a chilling silence 
amongst the familiar groups of gossips when he ap- 
proached. There are breaches of the sixth command- 
ment that confer merely nominal dishonour on the sin- 
ner ; but Carew’s infraction of it had entailed the sac- 
rifice of two political colleagues and friends. Under 


CORRUPTION. 


293 


the general frown he never faltered. He had seen other 
members suffer and survive. It could be lived down. 
So he set unostentatiously to work. He approached, 
one by one, the members of his eclipsed band, and 
suggested that it was still possible to save the party. 
It was, of course, now out of the question for him to 
attempt to guide its fortunes, but he proposed that Car- 
rick-Fox, an eminent Q. 0., formerly one of his strong- 
est supporters, should be chosen in his place. After 
some negotiations the change w^as effected, but, to the 
supreme annoyance of the shrunken group, the public 
and press still insisted on identifying them as the “ Ca- 
re wites.” 

“ You may tinker and twist the ‘ group ’ as you will,” 
said a comic paper, “ the name of Carew will cling to it 
still.” 

But London, an hostile and averted London, was a 
very different place to the hospitable, admiring city 
which flung open all its doors at his approach. The 
Muirs’ great house in Palace Gardens was closed ; his 
wife’s house, in which he could not enter now he had 
renounced all claims to it, was closed too. He noted 
one point with satisfaction. The Comet, which Wilson 
still conducted, had not joined in the general cry of 
“ shame ! ” 

It had dealt with him leniently. The Muirs evi- 
dently had no intention of closing all avenues against 
“ repentance.” 

‘‘I’m doing penance with a vengeance,” thought 
Carew, glancing round the bedroom in the Westminster 


294 


CORRUPTION. 


hotel, now his sole abode. There was something cyn- 
ically amusing in the contrast between his simple sur- 
roundings and the opulence of a few months ago. It 
represented the difference between “ being found out,” 
and successful deceit. “It is worse for her in the 
Bastide,” he thought. Then he sat down and wrote 
Beatrice a long letter containing a vivid impression of 
the frowns of old friends, the cold-shoulder of the 
clubs, and of the averted public mind. When it was 
finished, the train of thought prompting the letter had 
modified itself. 

“ It is hard for Beatrice, of course, but a woman 
doesn’t feel so much ; besides, she has what she wants 
most.” Even in the midst of his political and social 
bankruptcy there was consolation in the reflection that 
the most beautiful and brilliant woman he had ever 
known had sacrificed herself for him. It never 
occurred to him to doubt that he was well worth any 
sacrifice that Beatrice might have made ; yet when 
his lawyers informed him that the Muirs’ eminent 
legal adviser had received no instructions from their 
clients, his satisfaction harmonised ill with the scheme 
of matrimonial readjustment which he imagined him- 
self to contemplate whenever the law made it prac- 
ticable. 

Carew now thought he nearly knew the worst. In 
the House he interposed once or twice in debate with 
his usual lucid felicity. The annual parliamentary 
discussion on military reform gave him his opportunity. 
The Government were busily fencing with critics clam- 


CORRUPTION. 


295 


curing for Vv^ ar Office reorganisation, and were protect- 
ing themselves under the cover of another Royal 
Commission. Carew made an admirable and brilliant 
speech in which he said in the clearest possible manner 
what the country in its usual inarticulate and sluggish 
manner felt. There were vested interests of a delicate 
kind that rendered changes difficult. Everyone knew 
what they were, but the Government feared to wound 
the feelings of certain incompetent, highly-placed, and 
aged officials by mentioning them. This was kind- 
hearted, but unbusiness-like. They had hidden their 
heads in the sands of humility and subservience, and 
said, “ Dear me ! we can’t — we can’t quite see the neces- 
sity of these very tiresome reforms, but you shall have a 
Royal Commission if you like. Take our word for it. 
There’s nothing like one. It soothes the public mind, 
appeases the terrors of noble military breasts, and 
relieves us of our responsibility. It is such a nice, gen- 
tlemanly arrangement too ! So English, full of fair 
play and all that kind of thing. It isn’t cheap, but 
there ! we are a rich people, and have a right to such 
luxuries, since we can well afford them.” Such v/as 
the feeling of the Government in this question accord- 
ing to Carew. 

On the other hand he declared that if they had the 
courage they might carry out the necessary reforms 
without delay; but to appoint a Commission for the 
rediscovery of a number of perfectly well understood 
facts was a silly impertinence to the best intelligence 
of the country. The incompetency of the War Office 


296 


CORRUPTION. 


was quite as miicli a matter of common knowledge as 
the law of gravitation. The news^^apers which had 
been repeating similar arguments only a little more 
loosely and less effectively than the hon. member for 
the Beauvis Division, were compelled to enthrone 
Carew once more in their “ leader ” columns. His 
speech contained some clean-cut epigrams which made 
capital bolts for harassed journalists writing against 
time and fond of a “ cock-sh}^” The cartoon the 
speech suggested to a weekly paper, representing the 
Secretary of State for war feeding John Bull out of a 
baby’s bottle labelled “ Royal Commission Soothing 
Syrup,” causing great satisfaction at Beauvis. “ I told 
you we were right in sticking to him ! ” said the men of 
light and leading when they saw it. “ Look there ! if 
there isn’t ‘ the member for the Beauvis Division ’ 
peeping round the corner and laughing.” 

A few days later, Wilson, the editor of the Cornet^ 
who had kept away from the lobby of the House from 
fear of meeting Carew, stopped him in Parliament 
Street, and congratulated him quite deferentially. 
“You scored splendidly off the Government the other 
night.” 

“ I am glad you are satisfied,” said Carew, coldly ; 
“ it is encouraging.” 

“ You see, I’m in a difficult position,” said Wil- 
son. 

He had begun life as a reporter on a half-penny 
Glasgow paper, and, as a well-equipped journalist, had 
long since forgotten what a snub felt like. 


CORRUPTION. 


297 


“ After the — eh — little domestic trouble,” he con- 
tinued unabashed, “ my proprietor sent me word that 
I was not to write you up any more. Worst of it is my 
convictions and yours seem like twin brethren. What 
you think on Monday I fancy on Tuesday. There 
have been occasions on which the dates have been 
reversed, but I won’t enumerate ’em. The — eh — little 
domestic accident has interrupted the ancient harmony ; 
but all the same, with due loj^alty to Mr. Muir, I should 
be delighted to receive any political ‘ tips ’ you might be 
good enough to send.” 

Carew laughed, and said, “ You are one of the 
straws which show the way the wind blows. I can 
understand it isn’t very convenient to boycott me in the 
Comet when good ‘ copy ’ is scarce. If you do your 
readers will buy the Moon^ which is aching to interview 
me on the ‘ Suppression of the Commander-in-Chief.’ 
But never mind my humble affairs. I ho2)e the Comet 
is selling.” 

“ Going up by leaps and bounds. Proprietor’s de- 
lighted.” 

“Proprietors always are. Have you seen yours 
lately ? ” 

“NTo. Mr. Muir’s in Scotland, but his daughter 
and grandchild are coming South to-morrow. Air of 
Inverness too strong for the little man.” 

Wilson was proud of his tact. He considered its 
possession essential to a successful journalist. Carew 
understood the breed perfectly and was anxious to hear 
of his wife without appearing to seek information. He 


298 


CORRUPTION. 


learnt, with a strange flutter in his heart, that she and 
his son were to pass the late autumn and early winter 
in Brighton, whilst Wilson watched him out of the 
corners of his small, pale, shrewd, Scotch eyes with all 
the natural and acquired inquisitiveness of his character 
and calling. After the interviev/, he took notes of the 
conversation. 

To inform an eminent politician estranged from his 
wife and child as to their movements whilst you deli- 
cately disregard the relationship, Wilson considered a 
singular experience even for a Scotch journalist who had 
“ got on,” and stormed an editor’s office in Fleet Street. 
“ I’ll keep in with Carew,” he said to himself, con- 
vinced his refinement of feeling would be appreciated. 
“ lie means to live this business dov/n.” 

Carew felt some of the alfection, and all the curiosity 
of the average man for his own oflspring ; but when he 
next wrote to Beatrice, he omitted his conversation with 
the editor of the Comet from his letter. 

He was beginning to understand the situation now. 
That Muir desired his daughter to obtain a judicial 
separation against him, to be followed up by a divorce 
suit on the plea of desertion, was, he thought, nearly 
certain. You could always rely upon Muir doing and 
saying the usual thing and adopting the obvious course. 
But then Connie would take some other view than an 
entirely business-like one. The situation which was 
simple for the father became complex for the daughter. 
There was no necessity to protect his wife’s estate 
against him for he could not touch it. Therefore sepa- 


CORRUPTION. 


299 


ration was not urgent. On the other hand if Muir 
should say to his daughter, “ You must get a divorce 
against this man,” might she not be expected to reply, 
“ Why should I help him to marry my rival ? ” 

Carew never quite put these simple questions to 
himself, because he was ashamed of them in their crude 
ugliness. There are schemes which the most heartless 
villain fears to undrape in the privacy of his own fancy 
— retreat from the deepest obligations, or from condi- 
tions accepted as the deepest obligations, is of the num- 
ber. Carew’s only salvation, he told himself, was mar- 
riage with his accomplice. But then power to make 
this restitution was not in his hands so long as his own 
wife sat down meekly under her wrongs. It was his de- 
plorable fate to be unable to do justice to either. He 
revolved the matter in his mind over and over again, 
placing it always in the least unbecoming lights that 
pride and vanity could find to throw upon it. Gradu- 
ally he began to weigh the wrongs he had done to both 
women to see which were the heavier. Beatrice seemed 
rather his accomplice than his victim. He held that 
their offences were equal. But his wife’s only fault was 
to have placed boundless confidence in him. To her 
claims were added those of his son. Was not then the 
wrong he had inflicted on his wife greater than that 
which he had brought on his mistress ? But when he 
thought of Beatrice — the bright, the worldly, the de- 
lightful Beatrice — in the solitude of the Bastide, count- 
ing the days separating her from his return, he was 
filled with pity. 


300 


CORRUPTION. 


“ Day after day goes by,” slie wrote, “ and the soli- 
tude seems to thicken around me. It has become a 
wall ; the steep blue sky, the wide horizon of sea, these 
beautiful rocks and hills are a prison. Once a day the 
postman comes, or passes by on his way to the hamlet 
Avithering in unutterable dryness on a crag between this 
lovely desolation and the Corniche road. When he 
passes my heart sinks to a pin point of condensed mis- 
ery ; when he stays and brings me papers and letters 
from you I live again for a space and touch the big 
world in which you are moving. I read your name in 
the papers, and recall a hundred thousand thoughts 
that those printed letters have summoned up before. 
But I can’t live on the letters ! The sun sinks behind 
the spiral C3^prcsses, the cold creeps out of the ground, 
the long evening commences, and I crouch over the 
fire, the rag of my former self. Paul ! Paul ! only a 
very good woman can be left alone in the wilderness 
with her own spectre as a companion, without quiver- 
ing with fear. The newspapers, recording the com- 
mon^^lace existences of the women with whom I used 
to associate, shoot the sharpest arrows at me. I was 
born for flattery, luxury, excitement, for the vitalised 
artificial world which society has made, and where I 
built me a tabernacle, but now — what have I in ex- 
change ? Exile, humiliation, solitude. ‘ Zut alors ! ’ as 
Annette says, I am terribly sorry for myself, though to 
write of my misery is an anodyne. But worse than all, 
when the sky is black, the sea grey and harsh, and the 
rain descends like a whip, and the winds buJTet this 


CORRUPTION. 


301 


Bastide, as though in wrath that it should shelter une 
femme qiii ne merite pas aucun abris^ my desolation is 
complete. All my offences take hand and join in a 
chorus with the wind and the rain in denouncing the 
impenitent one. There are moments when they shat- 
ter my brain, and I absolutely grovel ‘ in my valley of 
desolation.’ ” 

Her letters, which were frequent, and full of the 
haunting charm that clung to all she did, came to him 
like a cry out of the solitude. Although there were 
always a few humorous threads woven in the texture 
of her complaints, he knew that that high-strung, reck- 
less soul, whose melodious voice he recalled in her writ- 
ten words, was paying the penalty of her revolt. 

“You and another” — she never said or wrote “my 
husband ” or “ Gerald ” — “ have condemned me to heart- 
labour. My soul is busy on the treadmill all day, and 
every evening falls back exhausted. I have been read- 
ing Job for comfort. I have found none. Had he 
been a woman I should have found more. 

And now his heart said, “ Poor Beatrice ! ” as but 
lately it had said, “ Poor Connie ! ” He knew very well 
that one piece of news alone could comfort her, so he 
took the train to Brighton, thinking perhaps that he 
might find it there. 

O 


302 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Carew knew at wliicli hotel his wife was staying, 
but dared not walk straight in at its portals like a 
man claiming his own. He arrived in the long white 
stuccoed town soon after midday, and found Brighton 
lunching and the parade deserted. The movements of 
the crowds along the sea-front at fixed intervals mark 
the progress of the day as regularly as the clocks of its 
many steeples. 

Carew sat down on a seat and waited. The wide 
horizon, steeped in pearly-grey mist, was redeemed by 
a soft autumn sun from the reproach of fog. The 
grey-green Channel recalled the deep blue of the Medi- 
terranean. The two seas became the link between the 
two women. 

In his fancy he beheld the woman he had left 
seated on the stone wall of the steep and terraced 
hill forlornly gazing seaward. In all horizons may be 
found the basis for melancholy refiections. The im- 
mutable powers of destiny leave them alone uninter- 
rupted. They sink a man in the everlasting by im- 
pressing on him the futility of his schemings and the 
narrow limits of his domain. The heaving tide fretted 
against the shingle, spectral ships moved on the ex- 
treme verge of the sea through the damp shadows of 
the Channel like the undefined shapes of dreams. His 
own feeling of suspense suggested that the world was 
waiting for something to happen. The smoke wreaths 


CORRUPTION. 


303 


from the interminable terraces, squares and crescents 
rose unchallenged by the breeze, like meek expiatory 
sacrifices to the pale autumn sky ; land and sea seemed 
to be yearning for answer to some eternal question 
they had vainly asked of the placid sky. 

At last, when the thin stream of traffic thickened 
and the rumble of wheels grew in volume, Carew 
turned his back on the horizon and fixed his eyes on 
the hotel whence he expected his wife to issue. Be- 
fore its doors were several carriages. One by one they 
drove away till the last victoria was left. Still sitting, 
lost in the moving throng that now filled both pave- 
ment and parade, absorbed in painful expectancy, 
Carew watched for its occupants. “ That must be hers,” 
he thought. Finally, the hall porter — a flaxen-bearded 
German with a gold-bound cap — threw open the big 
glass doors and two old ladies in deep mourning drove 
soberly away. 

He rose from the seat and walked impatiently up 
and down, conscious of an aggrieved feeling against his 
wife for not fulfilling his expectations, but never losing 
the hotel from his sight. 

“ All children ought to be out on such a fine after- 
noon as this!” he reflected peevishly, unconscious of 
the incongruity of such a thought at such a moment. 

By this time the crowd was thick about him. A 
passer-by recognised him and, nudging his companion, 
said, “ That’s Paul Carew.” For the first time, he 
hated being stared at as “ a celebrity.” He turned 

round quickly to bring the hotel under his eyes again. 

20 


304 


CORRUPTION. 


This time a baby in a long white cloak was being 
carried down the steps, whilst two hotel servants fol- 
lowed with a resplendent white perambulator. But 
although he could not recognise the nurse as “ ours,” 
or see the child under its thick veil and many wrap- 
pings, yet he followed the white perambulator. 

When the nurse reached the sea-wall that protects 
the long strips of turf at the point where Hove and 
Brighton unite she sat down, and Carew with a pleas- 
urable glow of excitement approached. 

“May I ask, nurse,” he said, “ if that is Mrs. Carew’s 
baby ? ” 

The nurse looked up in surprise and said “ Yes, 
sir ” ; but without recognising him. 

“ You haven’t been with Mrs.' Carew long? ” 

“ Yo, sir. I only entered her service a few days ago. 
W ould you like to see baby ? ” 

She removed the thick veil from the slumbering 
child. 

“ Dear little chap ! ” said Carew kissing him very 
softly. “ He is grown since I saw him last. I heard 
that Scotland didn’t agree with him.” 

“ I only came into Mrs. Carew’s service at Brighton, 
but the last nurse told me the air was too keen for 
him. That’s why he was brought here.” 

The young woman watched him wonderingly. A 
young gentleman absorbed in a child who did not 
belong to him was a novel experience. 

“ x\nd how is Mrs. Carew, nurse ? ” 

“ Quite well, thank you, sir.” 


CORRUPTION. 


305 


“ And Mr. Carew ? ” 

“ I don’t know anything about him.” The tone of 
her voice suggested “ nor don’t want to.” 

But whilst he was bending over the child, half 
from curiosity and half from instinctive affection, he 
heard a quick step, and turning, confronted his wife, 
with all the ancient gentle submissiveness flown from 
her pale face. 

At first, he could not meet her eyes, but, turning 
them seaward, said, “ I heard you were at Brighton and 
I wanted to see the boy. I watched for him for hours 
outside the hotel.” 

He had raised his hat almost suppliantly, and as 
one prepared to move on now his mission is completed. 

“ Stay,” she said, “ I want to speak to you.” 

They moved away a few steps from the nurse 
towards the west where the sun was glowing big and 
round through the sea mists it coloured a dusky 
red. 

He was the first to speak. 

“ I don’t know what you can have to say to me. I 
only know you think me a villain, and that I deserve 
nothing but contempt and dislike from you. Some 
men are so utterly bad that they are not worth even 
blaming. But even the basest of us have natural in- 
stincts. One brought me down here.” 

“ Since you wrote me that letter,” she said, with 
a visible effort to be calm, “ I have thought of many 
things. My views of life, which I know you re- 
garded as childish, have widened. Will you tell me 


306 


CORRUPTION. 


why you made me love you? Tell me the truth — if 
you can.” 

Her last three words revealed how completely as a 
girl’s hero he was dethroned. He grew hot with shame. 

“ Because I thought you were good and sweet, and 
because I hoped you might save me from her, or her 
from me.” 

“ Your marriage was an experiment then? ” 

“ Yes, in a measure.” 

“ And I am the victim.” 

“ Yes — one of them — the most to he pitied.” 

He remembered with a curious feeling that Beatrice 
had spoken of his marriage in similar words. 

“ I wish I could atone to you, hut there is no atone- 
ment,” he continued. “ I have set you free. You 
need only follow your lawyer’s advice. He will have 
told you that it is possible for you to begin all over 
again. I know you will not believe what I am going 
to tell you for it is very difficult to believe, but as 
long as I live I shall feel deep affection for you, the 
best kind of affection too. You are not worldly like — 
the rest of us. You want a purer atmosphere to 
breath in than we do. But there are two sides to a 
man’s nature. One I turned to you, the other I 
turned to her. You could never imagine the ex- 
istence of the other side — the side which con- 
quered.” 

“ I understand one thing,” she said, as sternly as 
her gentle nature permitted, “ and that is that you 
have been very wicked and cruel. My duty is plain 


CORRUPTION. 


307 


enough. The boy whom you have made fatherless 
claims all my care. It has been urged that I should 
take steps to free myself from the obligations of my 
marriage vow. To me that vow was a reality. I have 
told them that I shall do nothing to assist you to 
marry the woman who came between us and ruined 
my life. The lawyers tell me that I must hold no 
communication with you. If you intend to stay here, 
I will go away.” 

“ I am going,” he said. “ I think, perhaps, if you 
could understand everything you would pity me a 
little.” 


“ Where is that woman ? ” she asked suddenly, her 
emotions conquering her restraint, “ the treacherous 
friend who spied upon me, found out my secret, and 
laughed at me.” 

“ She never laughed at you.” 

But she did not heed him. 

“ She had a good husband of her own — a true- 
hearted gentleman whose honour she sold. She used 
to laugh at him, I have heard her. She is false, so 
false that she cannot herself realise the extent of her 
de<^eit. If you married her she would deceive you. 
She does so now if she is true to her character. Since 
her husband freed himself from her I have heard 
stories about her which I should be ashamed to repeat. 
A man cannot understand these women like another 
woman can. One reason why I refuse to do as my 
father wishes and let the law give you to her is be- 
cause, greatly as you have wronged me and our inno- 


308 


CORRUPTION. 


cent child, she will drag you down with her. I want 
to spare you that.” 

And so her pent-up anger burst forth, and Carew 
felt that jealousy had touched its spring. 

“ If I were to tell you,” he said, “ that what she has 
become I have made her, and that, if she is as corrupt 
as you believe, I am answerable for the corruption — 
what would you say ? ” 

“ I should not believe you. I know now that the 
man I thought good and noble was a mere plaything 
in the hands of a treacherous and evil-minded woman. 
She found out your weaknesses and played on them. 
You were simply helpless. To think that so promis- 
ing a career should have been ruined by so base a 
woman ! ” 

Carew scarcely recognised his wife in the pale in- 
dignant woman upbraiding him. “ She is only repeat- 
ing,” he thought, to save his wounded pride, “ what 
the others have said.” Still she had stung him to the 
quick. The idea that Beatrice might deceive him 
as she had deceived the rest of the world deeply galled 
him. 

“ I deserve all your reproaches,” he said, “ and most 
of your contempt. For the virtuous, I have become a 
‘ thing to thank God upon.’ There is one favour I 
should like to ask you before I go — let me know if the 
boy should ever be ill. Good-bye.” 

He raised his hat, as though taking leave of a 
stranger, and, turning his back on the sea, walked in 
the direction of the station, leaving his wife a prey to a 


CORRUPTION. 


309 


love which contempt could not quench and a jealousy 
reason could not moderate. 

She loved him, but could not pardon him. Respect 
was destroyed, but the passion accompanying it re- 
mained. When he was gone she looked round with 
longing in her e3^es and at her heart. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Meanwhile a succession of wet and windy days 
had blotted out the summits of the hills, robbed the 
sea of colour, and cut off the Bastide from the outer 
world. 

In fine weather the rock-built village on the crag 
above tempted visitors. For the archaeologist there was 
an ancient Roman villa, with an inscription and a few 
dim scratchings on its crumbling stones, whilst a dusty 
shrine with a local reputation for miracles tempted 
both the inquisitive and the pious to drive over from 
neighbouring villas. 

But in stormy v/eather the muddy ways were de- 
serted, save by the peasants morosely climbing the hills 
under dripping umbrellas. In the gloom Beatrice’s 
feeling of abandonment deepened. The world seemed 
conspiring to make her wretched. The Bastide had be- 
come a place of atonement. For the doors of the ill- 
built houses rattled petulantly in the sullen blasts, and 
the damp crept through all the pores of its white- 
w'ashed walls. 


310 


CORRUPTION. 


Eight hundred feet below, and an hour’s walk by 
the winding paths, ran the line between Nice and 
Monte Carlo. On still days she could hear the roar of 
the express thundering along the brink of the sea from 
Marseilles, but the rush of the rain and the wind 
drowned this comforting assurance of escape. Looking 
from her window it seemed to her that the whole 
landscape was racing downhill to drown itself de- 
spairingly in the sullen sea, like a defeated army flee- 
ing before an invisible foe in a panic which the stiff 
cypresses vainly tried to check. But the first days of 
December brought back the sun and news from Eng- 
land that aroused her slumbering suspicion into tortur- 
ing activity. 

The following paragraph in one of a bundle of weekly 
newspapers was the cause : — “ Brighton is fairly full this 
year, and some well-known faces may be seen along the 
sea-front. On Saturday, amongst many other notabili- 
ties, Mr. Paul Carew might have been seen looking none 
the worse for certain agitating experiences. Mrs. Carew 
is also staying at the Bedford Hotel with her infant 
son.” 

Carew had written regularly and cheerfully, describ- 
ing his fight, and the progress he was making in his 
“ work of reconstruction and expiation.” “ Expiation ” 
bore a double irony now. She understood it in a very 
different sense to that which he had intended to convey. 
How could she doubt that he was deceiving her, unless 
the paragraph were an idle invention? Bitterly she 
remembered her husband’s words ; humiliation and jeal- 


CORRUPTION. 


311 


ousy were now intensified by the feeling of loneliness and 
desertion. Her helplessness was complete. All her boats 
were burnt. Her sole hope was in Carew and that every 
day was weakening. Picture after picture grew in her 
mind, to add to her intolerable mortification. She be- 
held him asking his wife for forgiveness with the child 
as a common rallying-point ; she heard him stringing 
together the specious excuses of the man tempted by the 
wicked woman — no one in the world, she knew, was ca- 
pable of doing it with greater eloquence or skill. “ That 
girl,” she thought, “is feeble enough for anything. 
Women of that sort with babies pardon a man any- 
thing, if he will only say ‘ please forgive me — the woman 
tempted me, and I did eat.’ From the beginning of the 
world to the end it has been the same.” Then she longed 
to recall the past. “ What a kind good man Gerald al- 
ways had been ! true, simple, and gentle always ; consid- 
erate beyond measure, generous without limit, so proud 
of her, too. His very dullness now seemed attractive. 
Never before had she perceived the beauty of honesty so 
clearly. The more she compared the two men the vaster 
appeared the folly of her sacrifice. For the first time 
she was clearly conscious of the moral deterioration that 
had sapped the nobler qualities of Carew. She knew 
his power of persuading himself that whatever he might 
want was right. The other woman was mistress of the 
situation. Whilst, under the shadow of Carew’s selfish- 
ness, her intelligence and her instinct compelled Beatrice 
to survey the arguments opposing her interests in their 
native ugliness, these same faculties were unable to pre- 


312 


CORRUPTION. 


sent those most flattering to her pride except as the in- 
distinct phantoms of probabilities at which we clutch in 
despair when we see that our hopes are drowning. The 
Bastide, the sloping garden, the terraced hill seemed a 
desert island on which she was marooned, to perish 
amongst a host of forebodings and fears, by the man 
who had wrecked her life. 

All the morning she moved restlessly about her sunny 
prison. The sea and sky looked bluer and more serenely 
heedless of human hopes and fears than ever after the 
wind and rain. A few late roses still bloomed on a strag- 
gling hedge. She picked one mechanically and flxed it 
in the bosom of her dress. Its scent reminded her of the 
ghosts of thousands of forgotten roses worn in happier 
days. She saw her own rose garden at Elcourt and 
longed, till she could almost have screamed, for the 
luxury, the flattery, the power she had squandered so 
madly. “ My God ! why was not I a good w^oman ? ” It 
was in vain she told herself that there were many women 
in Society worse than herself permitted to remain within 
its charmed precincts only because no one cared to ques- 
tion their right — the comfort of this consolation was worn 
out. All that remained to her of her former glory — her 
beauty, in a few years would be gone too. “ What will 
become of me then?” she asked herself aloud, stand- 
ing over the straggling rose-bush, and looking through 
the boughs of the flickering olive orchard on the pitiless 
sea. 

After a while she went into the bare salon where the 
walls and ceiling were painted over with garish roses and 


CORRUPTION. 


313 


ill-drawn swallows, and sat down to write to Carew. But 
resentment stifled her powers of expression. She desired 
to make a touching apjoeal to his generosity, not to up- 
braid him, which she knew was useless, so, finally, she 
abandoned her letter till her mood should change. 

Then dejeuner was served, and Annette, who had 
grown fond of her mistress chiefly because her voice was 
soft, her eyes sad, and her sighs rustled the silence of the 
little salo7i with a faint and sympathy-provoking stir, 
said, “ II faut sortir madame^ faire une promenade d 
Nice^ par exemple. Madame a mauvaise mine ce mating 

And she listened to the servant’s advice. She had 
avoided Nice and Monte Carlo because Carew desired it. 
They were full of English people who would regard her 
as a pariah. An “ unattached ” divorcee^ with the stigma 
of the decree fresh upon her becomes the object of con- 
temptuous interest. The women glance at her over 
their averted shoulders, and the men adopt a form of 
politeness by which she may measure the depth of her 
fall. There was no one to protect her now, and she 
was unaccustomed to being alone. Still she was ready 
to do anything to break the monotony of her days. On 
the table lay a little local sheet, published in English, 
and giving the names of the visitors along the Riviera 
from Hyeres to San Remo. She glanced down at the 
names. Prominently in the list Prince Ferdinand 
stood out. His yacht, the Iris^ was lying in Nice har- 
bour. At Konigsfontein the prince had singled her out 
for conspicuous favours. It was probable that so ex- 
alted a personage might not have heard of “ her case.” 


314 


CORRUPTION. 


Serene Highnesses lie “ beside their nectar regardless of 
mankind.” However, -whether he had heard or not 
mattered little. Should she go over to Nice for an 
hour or two ? It seemed ages since she had seen a shop. 
To go over alone was to acknowledge her status as an 
adventuress and she refused to accept the badge which 
she had so successfully won. Yet she decided to go, 
and to take Annette with her. The servant was de- 
lighted. The little change could not fail to benefit 
madame who was weary waiting for monsieur’s return 
and needed distraction. So a carriage returning to 
Beaulieu empty from the Roman villa was hired to con- 
vey them to Nice. Driving thither down the steep 
road her failing spirits revived. The visit to Nice was 
her revenge for the visit to Brighton. After all, why 
should she permit herself to be tortured by one gloomy 
thought ? In ten days Paul would be with her again. 
She must wait until then for an explanation, and not 
condemn him of treachery without giving him a hear- 
ing. She had dressed herself as plainly as possible in a 
tailor-made coat and skirt and a straw hat. On the 
Promenade des Anglais she saw one or two familiar 
faces, but escaped unobserved. Then, having dismissed 
the carriage, she walked down to the harbour to look at 
the 7r^5, and a feeling of shame walked with her. “ I 
must be an adventuress,” she thought ; “ I am hunting 
the prince?” The thought, as thoughts will, mixed 
with her recorded novel-readings. She remembered 
how Mrs. Rawdon Crawley had hunted down the Mar- 
quis of Steyne. She had never imagined herself in 


CORRUPTION. 


315 


such a squalid association before, for she had woven 
veils of romance over every incident leading up to the 
present moment, but for the moment the paragraph in 
the paper had destroyed her power of self-delusion. 
Directly she admitted that the husband whom she had 
deceived was a good and true man, whilst she made her 
lover the object of the ugliest doubts, the lime-light 
went out. Yainly she told herself that nothing had 
changed when all was changed. 

But there alongside the quay lay the Iris, spick and 
span, with shining decks and gleaming brass. Beatrice 
had been for a short cruise in the Channel with the 
prince. There was the deck on which she had sat and 
talked to him when they were oR the Needles. On the 
deck stood a handsome young man, formerly an officer 
in the P. and 0. service, who commanded the yacht. 
He recognised her, raised his cap, and hurried to shore 
to speak to her. 

“ He knoAVS what has happened,” she thought, de- 
tecting a slighter shade of familiarity in his manner. 

“ Do come on board and have tea, Mrs. Mannering,” 
said the young sailor, when the first greetings were over. 

“ No, thank you, Captain Grey,” she said, “ there is 
no time. I must think of going back. I haA^e a long 
drive.” 

“ What a pity ! The prince will be disappointed not 
to see you. May I ask where you are staying? ” 

She told him, in spite of the significant smile she 
detected in his eyes when he spoke of the prince’s dis- 
appointment. The prince, she learnt, was visiting a 


316 


CORRUPTION. 


Russian grand-duke at Cannes, but was expected that 
evening. “ Fact is, Mrs. Mannering, we’re waiting for 
sailing orders. The prince is thinking of a cruise to 
Malta, but as usual is a little uncertain. His Serene 
Highness shall know that I have had the pleasure of 
seeing you. It will interest him immensely ! ” 

Everything seemed conspiring to push her down 
into a lower place in her own self-esteem. The young 
sailor’s last words sent the blood to her face. 

“ I shall remember your flattering courtesy,” she 
said, in a low voice that brought the blood into his too, 
“ but doubtlessly Prince Ferdinand can fully appreciate 
such amiability.” Then she turned her back on him, 
and, followed by the servant, walked to the Promenade 
des Anglais^ where she took a carriage and drove back 
with her garnered crop of mortifications to the Bastide. 


CHAPTER XL. 

The captain of the prince’s yacht gave Beatrice her 
first lesson. Mrs. Mannering, of Elcourt and Hill 
Street, resented it. But her journey to Nice broke the 
spell of monotony. On the following morning, as she 
was leaning on the rough stone wall separating the un- 
kept garden from the olive-orchard, waiting for her 
mid-day dejeuner, a light victoria, drawn by two power- 
ful Russian horses, drove up to her gate, and from it, in 
a light suit and an alpine hat, there stepped his Serene 


CORRUPTION. 


317 


Highness Prince Ferdinand of Konigsfontein. Beatrice, 
hatless, her brown-bronze hair shining like a bird’s 
wing in the sunshine, curtsied low to the prince’s sweep- 
ing bow. 

“ I am too honoured,” she said, with a charming 
blush on her cheeks, “by a visit that I never ex- 
pected.” 

The prince was tall and fair. He had a bald fore- 
head and a flaxen moustache that curled thickly round 
an aquiline nose and showed his full red lips and white 
even teeth. His cold blue eyes seemed weary with gaz- 
ing on a world which, whilst it had granted him all his 
wishes to satiety, had fulfilled none of them to the point 
of peace. 

“ Speak not of honour, madam, I beg,” he said 
slowly, but in almost perfect English. “ When I heard 
that you were here it became my duty to render my 
homage.” 

He bowed again and a faint smile shone in his pale 
eyes. 

His Serene Highness was more gracious than the 
captain of his yacht. He glanced round inquiringly at 
the white- walled house, the rough garden, and the 
gnarled olive-orchard beyond. She saw his glance and 
read its meaning. The prince evidently expected to see 
some one else. 

“ You are wild, charming, remote,” he said, with 
three little movements of his white hands, finely indica- 
tive of the situation of the Bastide. 

“ But oh, so lonely, sir, and so dull ! ” she answered. 


318 


CORRUPTION. 


“ Dull ! one is generally dull and perhaps fatigued,” 
he said, “ except when one is a philosopher, and then 
one is sad. But in London there were troops of friends 

at madam’s call.” 

0 

“ Things have happened since then,” said Beatrice 
quietly. 

“ Misfortunes ? So the good captain of my ship 
told me. A little contretemjps with your excellent hus- 
band, is it not ? Bah ! trifles of which the great Eng- 
lish people sadly exaggerate the importance. May I ask 
if madam is here alone ? ” 

“ Yes, prince, quite alone. All my friends have left 
me. In a few months they will forget me as a leaf is 
forgotten that the wind sweeps into the lake of your 
Konigsfontein. I shall not forget your lake, prince, 
under the clear moon, with the black trees for its fune- 
real border. I was happy at Konigsfontein, and your 
highness was gracious and kind. When one has been 
stoned by hypocrites one remembers with comfort the 
courtesies of nobler minds and the sympathies of power- 
ful friends.” 

“ The hypocrites in England stone well,” said the 
prince with a thoughtful smile. “ Some of your excel- 
lent papers have said rude things of me. A few were 
nearly true, yet of all the taste was bad. With you, no 
doubt, their taste was still more deplorable. I beg you 
will accept my deep commiseration.” 

Looking from the window in awe and wonder at 
“ monsieur le prince ” was Annette, fearing to announce 
dejeuner. 


CORRUPTION. 


310 

The situation was full of charm for Beatrice, and 
she boldly invited the prince to breakfast. 

“ Will you share my frugal dejeuner 9 ” she asked, 
smiling at him frankly — “ so lowly a repast will be an 
experience for your Serene Highness. He will see 
how the humble live. On cutlets and omelets, 
chiefly.” 

“ Cutlets are good and omelets are good,” said the 
prince blandly, “ and I shall have great pleasure.” 

Then Beatrice cried to Annette, still at the win- 
dow in doubt — “ Annette ! 7nettez un convert pour mon- 
sieur le prince^ 

“ And you live here ? ” said the prince. 

“ For a time. I am an exile.” 

“ An Eve driven from an earthly paradise,” said the 
prince. “ But you must find another.” 

“ Madame is served ! ” said Annette. 

Then Beatrice led the way to the dining-room of 
the Bastide. The damp had come through the wall and 
engulfed several swallows. 

“ You must pardon the meagre repast,” said she, 
helping him to a cutlet, “ even the cutlet looks apolo- 
getic.” 

“ A repast amidst surroundings so charming,” said 
the prince, with a little gracious movement of his jew- 
elled fingers that included the sunny landscape, the 
hostess, the damp walls, and the circling swallows, “ be- 
comes a banquet.” 

“ Fit for a prince, as we say in England,” suggested 
Beatrice. 


21 


320 


CORRUPTION. 


“ Too good for some of us,” said liis Serene High- 
ness, thinking of his cousins. 

Then he proceeded to eat his cutlet and the crisp 
fried potatoes with a good humour which even the thin 
red wine with which Annette filled his glass could not 
dispel. 

They talked of the prince’s projected trip to Malta, 
of Konigsfontein, of their English acquaintances, and 
of Lady Delafosse. 

“ Lady Delafosse cut me at Venice,” said Beatrice. 

“ Cut you ! ” said the prince. “ 0 yes ! ‘ cut ’ I un- 
derstand. My goodness ! the ladies, your country- 
women, are severe. Lady Delafosse ! Yes, yes, and 
with her pretty daughter. My lady is not young, nor 
of great beauty, nor of intelligence that is remarkable, 
but no doubt she is irreproachable.” 

The prince laughed, but without merriment this 
time, remembering, as all the world remembered, how 
once she had languished at his feet. 

“ It was a painful experience to be cut by Lady Dela- 
fosse,” said Beatrice. “ Her reputation as an intrigante 
is not yet a matter of history, but ” 

“ Yes,” interposed the prince smiling, “ there is a 
‘ but.’ In your language the word signifies very many 
things. Her ladyship’s conduct is unpardonable and I 
can never forgive her.” 

And the prince sipped his vin ordinaire whilst liis 
hostess helped him to the omelet. 

“ Shall we take coffee on the verandah in the sun ? ” 
asked Beatrice. “ I fear these swallows wdll ‘ get on 


CORRUPTION. 


321 


your nerves,’ as we say in England. They are ill-omened 
birds.” 

“It would be very pleasant to drink coRee in the 
sun,” acquiesced the prince, “ and as for the birds — they 
are not cheerful friends for you.” 

A little table was set in the sunshine by Annette ; 
his Serene Highness smoked a cigar and thought 
strange things of his hostess. The exalted rank and 
courtesy of her guest brought her comfort. When 
lunch was over the prince insisted that his hostess 
should drive with him. She thought of Carew. Of 
course he would have objected. Was it safe to dis- 
please him ? Then she looked at the dashing equipage, 
the long-tailed Russian horses, champing their bits at 
her narrow gate, and, glancing full into the prince’s 
eyes, she said — 

“Your Serene Highness is too gracious. You have 
come into my solitude like the noble prince of a fairy 
tale. This is the happiest morning I have spent for 
many weeks. You have broken the evil spell.” 

The prince, touched by her pretty manner and guile- 
less face, bowing low, kissed her hand. Then, her col- 
our slightly heightened, Beatrice hurried upstairs, and 
came down arrayed in a beautiful black and gold dress, 
and so they drove away together through the sunny De- 
cember air. 

“ Tiens ! c'est curicux^'' observed Annette, as she 
watched them go. 

“ contrairer'^ said the cook, lien naturel. 

C’est un p-r-rince ! ” 


322 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

Beatrice wrote to her “ dearest Paul ” on the day 
following the visit of the prince, and said: Prince Eer- 
dinand called yesterday morning and stayed to lunch. 
He was very agreeable, and, as usual, tant soit peu flat- 
tear. He is a man of large views as becomes a Serene 
Hisrhness. After lunch we drove — behind his beautiful 

O 

Russian horses with lovely long tails — over the hills and 
far away, through ISTice, where some of my former ac- 
quaintances eyed me vvdth envy on the Promenade des 
Anglais^ and, finally, we drank tea on his yacht. Indis- 
creet you will say, Paul. Doubtlessly, but are not most 
pleasurable excitements indiscretions, or their first cous- 
ins ? When a lonely woman who likes her fellow crea- 
tures, especially when they are both amiable and distin- 
guished, must choose between an indiscretion and a 
suffocating ennui^ what wonder is there if she should 
choose the first ? “ The prince is contemplating a 

cruise to Malta.” Carew had felt unuttered objections 
to the prince before Beatrice’s letter made them vigor- 
ous again. It loft the prince still “ contemplating ” the 
cruise. Now Carew liked to think of Beatrice as sitting 
in the solitude of the Bastide longing for his return. It 
seemed her natural attitude. But jealousy, which is 
vanity’s shadow as well as love’s, upset the selfish idyll. 
He began suddenly to miss her painfully. Her beauti- 
ful face haunted him. When he was sure of her he 
could wait patiently for the date fixed for his return to 


CORRUPTION. 


823 


tlie Bastide, but the prince, with his reputation, his 
wealth, his steam yacht, and the glamour of his exalted 
station, had entirely altered the situation. Distrust 
filled him. It was possible even now that he might lose 
the woman for whom he had sacrificed honour and 
reputation. And so, in his turn, Carew became the 
prey to jealousies and resentments, similar to those that 
had tormented Beatrice when she learnt of his visit to 
Brighton. Although the session had still two weeks to 
run he determined to go back to Beatrice at once. 
Might not the woman who had deceived her husband 
so successfully, and for so long, deceive him ? 

Jealousy is almost as effective a spur to speed as 
panic. Carew hurried across the Continent to Mar- 
seilles, and thence to Beaulieu, without break or rest. 
He loft fog in London, snow in Paris, but caught the 
sun in Marseilles. It was dark when he stepped on to 
the platform at Beaulieu. Driving slowly up through 
the gloomy cypresses and dim olives, his heart beat 
nervously. What should he find at the Bastide? At 
last, when he reached the open space in the winding 
road that Beatrice had so often watched from her win- 
dow, he saw one light burning in an upper room and 
darkness below. Why were no lamps burning in the 
salon and the dining-room ? Then the mirage, through 
which we behold the calmer past in our moments of 
dread, made him regard the days he had spent in the 
Bastide as the happiest of his life. 

Having dismissed the coachman, he swiftly crossed 
the familiar garden path. Above, in the blue black 


32 ^ 


CORRUPTION. 


sky the great stars shone frostily. Faint rustlings came 
from the olive-orchard. He was preparing himself for 
a disaster ; the shadow of it seemed to brood over the 
lonely little villa, a part of the silence of the night. 
Yet the small lamp burning in the passage reassured 
him as he knocked at the door which Annette in 
astonishment opened. 

‘‘ Mon Dieu ! ” she exclaimed, “ c’est monsieur.” 

The cook looked on from the kitchen door. Then 
in his clumsy English French he began to question her. 

“ Where was madam e ? ” 

Madame was dining with monsieur le prince at 
Monte Carlo. She had accompanied son altesse to the 
tables in the afternoon. Madame had won two thou- 
sand francs on the day before. No doubt, as usual, 
she would return at midnight in one of his Highness’s 
carriages. Then, when he knew she would return and 
that his worst fears were groundless, exasperation filled 
in his mind the place his fears had left vacant. 

Annette’s quick French eye reading jealousy in the 
face of monsieur, she was careful to place her mistress’s 
conduct in the most becoming light. Madame had 
seen her old friend the prince two or three times ; he 
had placed his carriages at her disposal, and had done 
much to dispel the ennui which monsieur’s absence had 
naturally caused madame. Monsieur’s return would 
doubtless restore madame’s habitual happiness. W^ould 
monsieur dine ? Should cook prepare him cutlets and 
an omelet at once ? 

The situation aroused all Annette’s dramatic in- 


CORRUPTION. 


325 


stincts. “ (^a sent ait le roman^'’ she told the cook, busy 
with her grillade. 

Carew, worn out with his long and sleepless journey, 
ate his cutlets and the unfailing omelet, and afterwards, 
sitting by the wood fire Annette had rekindled, waited 
for Beatrice’s return. Outside, he heard the same 
movements of the solitude — the friction of the cypress 
spines, the distant murmur of the stream, the flickering 
of the olive orchard — that had oppressed Beatrice. lie 
had not realised before how much it must have op- 
pressed her. Bour weeks of such an existence for a 
woman of her temperament might excuse greater in- 
discretions even than the prince’s visits so sedulously 
encouraged. A butterfly in a dungeon would be hardly 
more out of place. Then he felt for his cigar-case ; it 
was empty. On the mantelpiece he discovered a deli- 
cately-enamelled cigarette-case with the prince’s well- 
known arms. “ He makes himself at home ! ” he 
thought savagely as he lighted a Russian cigarette at 
the lamp. But, outside, the night rustled its excuses 
for Beatrice and the damp crept in and seemed to stir 
his hair. It was ten o’clock now. An owl flitting un- 
seen between two black cypresses cried weirdly in the 
night. 

Then he pulled the bell and told the servants not to 
wait for their mistress. Later, through the thin parti- 
tions, he heard the two women chattering excitedly 
together in their common room. The minutes went 
slowly by. At half-past ten, when the chattering 
ceased, he went up to Beatrice’s room, and saw, with 


326 


CORRUPTION. 


relief, tliat her clothes were scattered about the room, 
for it had occurred to him that perhaps she might 
never return. On the mantelpiece stood his own por- 
trait to comfort him. In a drawer he discovered a 
bundle of his letters. “ The business is getting on my 
nerves,” he said. “ I am a fool ! Of course I can trust 
her.” 

What could tempt her from him? Then he went 
dbwnstairs again and waited, till at last he heard the 
sound of swiftly-rolling wheels. Through the scanty 
blind he beheld the lamps flashing across the olive trees. 

The carriage stopped. A footman opened the door. 
Beatrice, radiantly dressed, stepped out — alone. Thank 
heaven ! his fears were dispelled. If the prince had 
walked in he felt he should have throttled him. 
Hastening to the door, he let her in. 

“ Paul ! ” she cried in wonder. “ Paul ! ” 

But he could trace none of the old pleasure in her 
voice. 

She followed him into the salon where the eternal 
swallows were circling, and they sat down at opposite 
sides of the Are. 

“ Beatrice, the devil has haunted me. I feared I 
had come too late.” 

“ Too late ? For what ? ” 

“ You know what I mean.” 

“That your unexpected arrival is a compliment, I 
suppose,” she said, drawing her soft mantle round her 
bare arms and shoulders. “ I had begun to wonder 
whether you would ever return.” 


CORRUPTION. 


327 


They were already on the verge of a quarrel, but he 
curbed his anger and spoke quietly, but with repressed 
excitement. 

“ You are unjust to me,” he said. “ You know I 
place your happiness above everything. You have had 
proof enough.” 

“ You object to the prince. Let us come to the 
point at once,” she answered. 

“ Of course I do. You know his reputation. He is 
an oriental in his ideas of women. Ei^ht months a2:o 
it was a different thing. To encourage his visits here 
now, when you are alone, and before Mannering’s 
decree is made absolute, is the height of folly and 
indiscretion.” 

“ Call it depravity. It’s simpler. But I will give 
you an explanation. Prince Ferdinand would never 
have known I was here unless you had gone to 
Brighton to see your wife.” 

“ Who told you I had seen her?” 

“ The newspapers. You forgot.” 

“ I went to see the boy,” he said, feeling guilty in 
spite of himself. 

“ Of course the visit did not include his mother ! ” 

“ I did see her.” 

“ I can guess v/hat she said ; it must have been quite 
dramatic. Master Carew slumbering in his cradle, 
hushed to sleep by mother’s tender lullaby. The 
orchestra plays soft music ; the audienee is thrilled in 
anticipation. Papa’s shadow appears on the window. 
He slowly enters the room. ‘ My son ! My son ! ’ 


328 


CORRUPTION. 


The mother starts. Keproaches, tears, reconciliation, 
forgiveness, and — curtain. Voila ! I can see the 
whole thing. The female villain, meanwhile, is starv- 
ing with remorse and ennui in a hut half-way up an 
inaccessible mountain ! ” 

^ Carew thought a moment before he spoke. In this 
obvious exhibition of jealousy might there not be 
something flattering to him? He was not sure. 

“ It is a little disappointing,” he said, “ to make a 
journey of a thousand miles for the pleasure of being 
laughed at. Life isn’t quite a pantomime for me. 
There is not a word of truth in your fancy pic- 
ture.” 

“ What did your wife say, then ? ” she asked angrily, 
the memory of the wretched days from which the 
prince’s visits had saved her filling her mind. 

“ Nothing you would care to hear,” he retorted, 
beginning to lose his temper too in the conflict with 
the side of her character she had shown but once to 
him before. 

“ I do wish to hear it. I have a right to know. 
My whole future, if you have a spark of honour in you, 
rests on that.” 

She stood up, looking at him defiantly, and her 
defiance increased her beauty. She had flung back her 
mantle, and her neck, arms, and shoulders stood in 
roundest softness and grace under the shaded lamp 
above her head. 

To be doubted, criticised, ridiculed by the woman 
for whom he had ruined himself was more than Carew 


CORRUPTION. 


329 


could stand ; so for once, regardless of its consequences, 
he told the truth. 

“ You really wish to hear?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ It will hurt you, I tell you, and do no good.” 

“ I have suffered so much — a little more can make 
no difference. Tell me what she said in her own 
words.” 

“Well, she said a number of unpleasant things 
about me. Perhaps you can guess what they were. 
They took some time telling, and I had no answer to 
make.” 

“ Yot even the plea of temptation ? ” she inter- 
rupted. “ I believe it is never known to fail with good 
women blessed with babies, and who are a little dull.” 

A few weeks before, such a sneer as this and in a 
voice so hard, would have been impossible with her. 
It revealed the change that had taken place since he 
had left her. “ She can’t love me any more,” he re- 
flected aghast, but now eager to stab her back. 

“ I forgot the plea you suggest with such admirable 
taste,” he said savagely. 

“ Keep it for your next meeting, then ! What did 
she say ? ” 

“ You will have it, then?” 

9 

“ Yes, every word of it.” 

“Well,” he replied, speaking slowly, “ she said that 
she would take no step to assist me to marry the 
woman who had come between us and ruined her life.” 

Beatrice grew pale and cold. It seemed to her that 


330 


CORRUPTION. 


the last plank connecting her frail ship with the land 
of honour and respect had been knocked away. But, 
after a moment, mortification and anger drove her back 
to the attack. 

“ And you submitted to this ? ” she cried. 

“What could I do? I couldn’t go down on my 
knees and ask her to divorce me,” he replied, cut by 
her accent of contempt. 

“ Good heavens ! ” she said witheringly, “ what a re- 
tort for Paul Carew ! ” 

“ Forgive me,” he said, ashamed at the coarseness of 
the insult he had fiung at her in his rage ; “ but you 
are so changed, so hard, so unfeeling, that you make 
me forget myself.” 

“You will never forget yourself, Paul Carew. You 
only came back to me because she did not ask you to 
stay. Did you tell her that what I am you have made 
me ? ” 

“ Yes. I said the wrong was all my doing.” 

“ Of course she did not believe you ! The admis- 
sion would spoil her policy. You can’t do away with 
the ‘ scape-goat.’ ” 

“ She said she did not believe me, but she was angry 
and unreasonable.” 

A dozen contradictory emotions w'ere now choking 
Beatrice. 

“ You told her I was a trusting and affectionate 
child, I suppose — the whole history ; and what a his- 
tory! Did you tell I had been the victim of a man 
utterly unworthy of me ? If you had had a real touch 


CORIIUPTION. 


331 


of greatness in you you could not have left me here 
alone. I bore it and tried to believe you were doing 
what was best for us, but all the time I suspected you 
'were plotting to return to your wnfe only I was ashamed 
to admit it even to myself until I found you were at 
Brighton. You have a policy for both alternatives ! ” 

Her voice rung full and clear through the house. 
Above, the French servants were listening, lying awake 
in the dark. 

“ C'est a cause du prince^'' whispered Annette. 

“ Je ne iidij etonne ^as^'' replied the cook. 

So, for many minutes, she overwhelmed him with 
reproaches, venting on him the pent-up bitterness her 
heart had gathered since she left Elcourt, 'w^eeping at 
last hysterically, and wringing her hands. 

“ You can go back when you like and live on the 
Muirs’ millions,” she cried ; “ but I have come to the 
end of all, thanks to you.” 

Some of the reproaches she lavished on him were 
merited, others were wild and unjust. And as he lis- 
tened he seemed to behold in her anger and grief the 
faint outline of a plan. Pride and vanity lay in torn 
shreds around him. She held his selfishness, his weak- 
ness, his baseness, under the magnifying glass of her 
unbridled pique and anger. 

“ Peace, Beatrice ! Peace ! ” he cried at last, trying 
to hold her in his arms, “ for I love you still ! ” But 
she repulsed him, and said, “ I love you no longer for 
I have found you out.” 

Then, as she ceased sobbing for a moment, and 


332 


CORRUPTION. 


whilst he held her by the wrist, he replied, “ And I 
have found you out, too ! This very scene you are 
making is false — like yourself. You did love once ; 
now you are tired of me. You want an excuse at any 
price. Would it not be as well to join the prince’s 
harem without exaggerating my unworthiness as a pal- 
liation?.” 

But, pale and dishevelled, she disengaged herself 
from his grasp, and, hurrying upstairs, locked her door. 
He followed, longing for her caresses, and sick at heart 
at the horrible scene which reminded him of one other 
years ago just before her wedding-day. 

“ Beatrice, Beatrice ! ” he cried, but she made no 
answer. At last he went down to the salon^ and, 
throwing himself on a hard couch by the smouldering 
wood fire, waited for the morning, hearing the cold 
night wind rustling the olives and swaying the cypresses, 
as she had often heard, and hoping, “ To-morrow she 
will relent.” \ 


CHAPTER XLII. 

The next morning, Annette, entering the salon, 
roused Carew from his feverish sleep. Outside, the sun 
was shining through the morning mists. Soon the light 
haze that lay over the sea lifted, revealing the faint 
shadow of Corsica far away on the horizon — a shape 
vast and dim floating on a calm sea. He felt more mis- 
erable, dejected, and defeated than he had ever felt be- 


CORRUPTION. 


333 


fore. We feel no loss more acutely than the loss of 
power. He had lost his power over Beatrice and had 
disgraced himself in the eyes of his wife. What a tri- 
umph for an intelligence that some of his admirers 
called genius ! In his greediness he had tried to grasp 
everything in his hand ; now the prize was slipping 
through his fingers like sand. He even began to feel 
for himself some of the contempt that Beatrice had cast 
on him the night before. Few greater humiliatious 
await the man accustomed to success than to be forced 
to admit, “ I have made a mess of it.” For an hour he 
wandered aimlessly around the Bastide waiting for Bea- 
trice. Annette, who had taken her mistress cofiee at 
nine, announced that madame would descend for de- 
jeuner. At twelve o’clock, when the biftek aux pommes 
was placed on the table, Beatrice, dressed in the close- 
fitting blue serge costume she wore when she accom- 
panied him for long walks amongst the hills, came down 
to share it. The tough steak and fried potatoes made 
a droll centre in the tragic atmosphere surrounding 
them. Pale, but collected, she sat opposite to Carew, 
whilst Annette stood behind his chair. 

“It is the strangest lunch we have ever had, Bea- 
trice,” he said quietly. “ Last night seems to me like a 
nightmare. Is it peace now ? ” 

He helped her to the steak and the potatoes. 

“ If this steak were as good as the potatoes the 
simple dish vrould have been a success,” said Bea- 
trice. 

She nibbled a piece of the hard meat critically. 


334 


CORRUPTIOX. 


“ Steak and potatoes,” she added enigmatically, 
“ may become the irony of life.” 

To-day, at all events, she was a little more like the 
familiar Beatrice to whom all droll situations appealed, 
and whom humour kept out of the feminine exaggera- 
tions of pose and phrase Carew expected in the women 
of his world. 

“ It is odd,” he answered, “ that we should sit down 
and eat tough meat after the horrible scene of last night. 
A quarrel between us sets all the world awry, but it 
doesn’t even prevent us from eating lunch.” 

“ Yes, it is odd,” she replied, sipping her vin ordi- 
naire. “ This wine is very sour ! ” 

“ I will order some more.” 

“ When ? ” 

“ To-day.” 

“ Thank you. But I think you mind its being sour 
more than I.” 

She was smiling quite easily now. 

“ She is relenting,” he thought, “ and repenting.” 

‘‘ I will order you some Beaune,” he said, “ and some 
champagne. I am afraid you have been wretchedly un- 
comfortable. I ought not to have left you. I never will 
again.” 

Annette listened but did not understand. She only 
noted their voices were gentle and that her master’s eyes 
were soft. Annette had never observed that his eyes 
were beautiful before. As she removed the dish, she 
thought : “ C^est un lei liomme tout de memo ! Mais 
V autre dest un prince. Que voulez vous f ” 


CORRUPTION. 


For she had sent a letter for her mistress that morn- 
ing, addressed to His Serene Highness, by the hand of 
the peasant who owned the next olive orchard. Doubt- 
lessly his Altesse was now reading it. 

When they were alone Carew placed his hand on 
Beatrice’s caressingly, and said half playfully, “ Forgive 
me, and I will forgive you.” 

“ I forgive you,” she said ; “ but I have done nothing 
needing pardon.” 

“ The Prince ! ” 

“ He shall not come here again. Apple fritters, as 
usual ! One day omelet, the next apple fritters ! Just 
like other people’s lives, isn’t it, Paul ? Monotonous — 
but, oh, so wholesome ! ” 

“ We must make our lives more like that, Bea- 
trice.” 

She had called him by his name quite naturally. 

“ Rather late, isn’t it ? Yesterday seems centuries 
ago ; does it to you ? ” 

“ Forget yesterday, and all you said, and I, like a 
vulgar, jealous fool, retorted.” 

“ Shall we have coffee on the verandah in the sun ? ” 
she asked. 

“ Yes. J ust like we use to.” 

He wanted to bring back. the idyllic, but felt like a 
man seeking treasures in a home that an earthquake has 
overthrown. 

A short sigh, almost like a strangled sob, shook her. 

“ Darling ! ” he said, “ darling ! Be good to me 

again ; be good.” 

22 


336 


CORRUPTION. 


His heart was full of a wild recrudescence of love, 
now the Prince’s shadow was over the Bastide. 

“ I mean to he kinder to you than I have ever been,” 
she said. 

“You won’t let Prince Ferdinand come here 
again ? ” 

“ Never ! ” 

She smiled as she spoke. 

“ And I will never leave you again, Beatrice.” 

He held both her hands in his like a lover. 

“ Your reproaches yesterday,” he continued, “ were 
not quite undeserved. By Heaven ! I wdll never give 
you a moment’s pain again. Beautiful Beatrice ! my 
lady Circe ! my heart’s flower ! my love ! ” 

“ Hush,” she said, “ hush ! I had rather you did 
not speak like that to me now. It is too near yester- 
day. Listen, Paul ! The robin on the olive tree yonder 
comes and sings to me every afternoon. They used to 
sing like that at home. Do you remember ? Listen to 
the sweet bird ! How strange and sad it sounds ! My 
heart has been to a funeral as chief mourner. When 
lovers quarrel they always bury something. This coffee 
is very good ! ” 

“All we will bury is the memory of my brutality.” 

“ Yes. That shall be ‘ quietly inurned,’ Paul. Hence- 
forth you and I will only think of our happy days. Ah 
me ! if we could hut live them all over again. But they 
have all been swallowed up. Come ! let us go in. You 
must dress yourself and look like Paul Carew, and go 
down to Beaulieu for the baggage you left at the sta- 


CORRUPTION. 337 

tion. When you return, we will begin life all over 
again.” 

O 

In a few minutes he was ready to start, shaven, clear- 
eyed, and alert. 

On a piece of paper he had prepared a list of com- 
missions — wine, luxuries, stores of various kinds. “ One 
can’t live on eggs and apples,” he said, laughing, as he 
showed it to Beatrice, “ so I have consulted cook. She 
has written down all this.” 

But Beatrice’s smile was wan and strange. 

He saw it, and stooped to kiss her, and for a long 
moment they clung to one another, and her arms were 
round his neck. 

“ There ! ” he said. “ Now to business. I will bring 
all these things back, and we will have a banquet to- 
night.” 

She came to the gate and watched him going down 
the hill with the tears gathering in her eyes. 

When he was out of sight, a lad who had been wait- 
ing for the signal in the olive orchard hastened up the 
hill. In a quarter of an hour a closed carriage, drawn 
by two strong, long-tailed Russian horses, arrived at the 
gate. A footman placed Beatrice’s trunks on the out- 
side, whilst she, with a white face and a trembling hand, 
stepped inside. 

Annette and the cook, the well-bribed confederates 
of her flight, watched her as slie drove away. 


338 


CORRUPTION. 


CHAPTER XLIIL 

Two hours later, Carew drove up with a carriage 
full of his purchases. In the quiet sunny air of the 
bright afternoon the hills looked down on the peaceful 
sea, the rocks stood out like burnished metal against 
the vivid blue, and through a valley, narrow and steep, 
the white peak of a maritime Alp soared, bare and beau- 
tiful, into the naked sky. As he ascended he passed and 
noted the fractured walls of a red-tiled homestead split 
almost in twain by the earthquake of wRich it w^as the 
last local trace. In a few hundred years, perhaps, the 
whole of that steep country might, shaken from its 
roots, slip down into the foam-fringed blue waters. 
“ Tout lasse tout casse^'''’ he said to himself, “ both in 
life and nature.” 

Yet, a few moments later, as he walked — follov/ed 
by the driver bearing the joarcels — into the Bastide, the 
reaction had set in and he felt at peace. Beatrice would 
love him and caress him once more ! ‘‘ Some weeks of 
Capua, and to fight again ! ” he thought. 

Without speaking to Annette, who awaited his re- 
turn with some anxiety but greater curiosity, he hurried 
upstairs, seeing from the narrow passage that the salon 
was empty and the door of her room closed. 

He knocked. There was no answer, so he entered 
and beheld the usual evidences of hasty packing — aban- 
doned gloves, a torn lace petticoat, but especially a red 
rose, the rose she had worn that morning, throwm aside 


CORRUPTION. 


330 


on tliG table whence the dressing-case had disap- 
peared. 

Near the rose lay a letter addressed to him in her 
handwriting. He stood a moment afraid to open it, 
after the terrible message of the disordered room. The 
delicate scent that clung to the bosoms of her dresses 
fluttered, on a thousand invisible wings, across the 
silence of the room illumined by a broad band of sun- 
light. The four pale-green walls, the white bed, the 
forgotten rose, all seemed aching in the silence for the 
beautiful presence that had vanished. Ilis heart, a 
moment before beating placidly, had turned cold. Still 
the letter might contradict the cruel hint of the room, 
so he opened it and learnt — the worst. “ Paul,” it said, 
“ I have left you. This morning I said I would be 
kinder to you than I had ever been before ; and so 1 
have, for I have set you free. I need not tell you where 
I have gone. In a few hours’ time from the deck of 
the yacht I shall see all these hills, perhaps this poor 
little Bastide where I have been so v/retched, stretched 
out clearly and distinctl}^ as I now see my own life be- 
hind me. Well, Paul, thanks to you that life has been 
a failure. Innocence and goodness after all are the only 
crowns worth having in this world. I threw them away 
at your bidding years ago. As an astronomer who 
watches some bright star circling in the sky night after 
night and ends in learning something of its movements, 
so I, watching you year after year, have mastered the 
mystery of your nature. After these years of our com- 
mon selfishness I will spare you the conclusions to which 


340 


CORRUPTION. 


my studies have brought me. Men who don’t ‘ run 
straight,’ poor Gerald used to say, ‘ go bad ’ fast. That 
you fancy you care for me now, and that you want to 
make amends, I think is likely, but the feeling can’t 
last. Your best chance, your only chance of salvation, 
is to return to your wife. She wdll relent in time. 
There is always the baby on your side, you know, and 
the eternal and convincing plea of temptation, followed 
by the most magnificent atonement. Go back to poor 
little Connie — Connie the dull, the good, and the ex- 
ceedingly rich. Assist her in abusing me, and some day 
perhaps you wdll be Prime Minister! So the dream 
ends. As for me, I have taken another adventurous 
step in life, leading I know not whither, nor greatly 
care. Both of us have to begin over again. La cariere 
est ouvei'te aux talents^ as my French master used to 
say. Good-bye, Paul ; good-bye 1 — Beateice.” 

Then Carew remembered the earthquake and the 
shattered wall. The letter struck him in the centre of 
his heart. Never, he felt, had he loved her so deeply, 
lie hid his miserable face in the pillow to which the 
scent of her hair clung, stunned and broken by the 
blow. Outside in the garden the robin was still plaint- 
ively piping. Suffocating memories, deep and torturing 
regrets and longings filled him, and stung him. Then 
it occurred to him that he might save her yet. 

“ Annette ! ” he shouted. 

The honne^ wdio with pity had heard his groan of 
tearless misery, hurried to the room. 

“ Madame has gone,” she said ; “ Monsieur le Prince 


CORRUPTION. 


341 


sent his carriage. It was all arranged. What could I 
do ? She left a quarter of an hour after monsieur in a 
beautiful equipage drawn by lovely horses with long 
tails. Madame wept, but said it was for the best.” 

But Carew only half understood her voluble and ex- 
cited French. If he could catch a train at Beaulieu he 
might be at Nice before the yacht sailed. He would 
prevent her leaving even if he shot the Prince. Jealousy 
and rage filled him. lie took his revolver from its case 
and filled its chambers, and hurried out of the house 
down the steep path to the station. 

“ a prit son pistolet ! ” cried Annette to the cook. 

'"'•Mon Dieu que c’est romanesqiie ! ” cried the other, 
as they watched him running swiftly through the olive 
orchards. 

He reached the station, breathless and almost speech- 
less, for he had run almost the whole distance and the 
sweat was streaming from his face. 

There was a train in a quarter of an hour. He cursed 
even this delay. At last it steamed into the station. 
Carew, jumping into a carriage full of young English- 
men returning from Monte Carlo, who looked at him 
stained with dust and perspiration in wonder, w^as 
borne along the margin of the magnificent coast to 
Nice. 

Then, as he sprang into a cab to drive to the har- 
bour, he felt the revolver in his side pocket bang on 
his hip. 

There was a crowd on the quay — a big steamer from 
Marseilles was taking her place amongst the shipping — 


312 


CORRUPTION. 


but Carew, piisliiug through the throng, shouldered 
men and women aside, heedless of their oaths and ejacu- 
lations. Through the rigging and masts of the ships 
and feluccas he saw the tapering spars of the Iris — he 
was just too late. The yacht was twenty yards from 
the quay, a crowd watching her departure. There, on 
the deck, in her serge costume, beside the prince in his 
yachtman’s dress, stood Beatrice. 

From the quay’s edge he shouted her name despair- 
ingly : “ Come back ! Come back ! ” 

She heard him. 

“ It is too late, Paul ! Please, don’t make a scene — 
good-bye.” 

The prince removed his cap with a sweeping but 
ironical bow, the revolving screw churned up the foam, 
and the Iris swung out of the harbour. 

Beatrice waved him a final farewell. But he stood 
motionless, watching the yacht. “ Don’t make a scene.” 
These wwe her last words. 

Why had he not blown out his brains on the quay in 
sight of her and ended it all. He could do that at any 
time. He hurried to the shore, unconscious that a 
group of Englishmen were eyeing him, and watched the 
Iris till she disappeared in the soft mist of the declin- 
ing day. 

That night he lay awake in blind misery in the Bas- 
tide. On the dressing table next to Beatrice’s rose w’as 
his revolver, but he knew he had no use for it. He read 
her letter again and again, and at last began to see ex- 
cuses for her. 


CORRUPTION. 


343 


Tout lasse^^' he thought, tout casseT Bea- 

trice haunted the room, the faint scent tortured him, 
but still he never touched the revolver. 

When morning came, haggard and looking ten years 
older, he made up his mind. 

“ I must go back,” he said to himself, “ and begin 
all over again.” 

And he went. 


THE EXD. 





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